


Blood and Spirit

by wombuttress



Series: void and light, blood and spirit [2]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Blood Magic, Drowning, Established Relationship, F/F, Prostitution, Self-Harm, Wilderness Survival
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2020-10-17 14:14:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 21
Words: 103,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20622365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wombuttress/pseuds/wombuttress
Summary: Amell and Surana are out of the Circle, and are now free to build a life together. But when the prison doors fly open, what do you have in common with the one shackled next to you, save for the chains that bound you both?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> It is not necessary to read the first story to understand this one, although I would really like it if you did.

_ I dare you to drink it, _Yvanne had said, grinning crookedly.

_ Don’t be ridiculous, _Loriel had replied, and she’d thought she’d put the vial back on the table, but now here it was, still in her pocket. She must have slipped it there without thinking. The glass was warm against her fingers, and for the life of her, she could not remember taking it.

“As far as the usual fiascos go, I think this was one of our more successful,” said Yvanne, taking a seat by the fire and slinging a casual arm around her. 

Loriel quickly let go of the vial, clasping her hands in her lap. “What do you mean?”

“Levi’s happy, veil’s fixed, no demons running about, and we have a pet evil blood mage now. I think we can pat each other soundly on the back, don’t you?”

“Oh, don’t bring him up, please,” Loriel fretted. After a pause, she went on, “Do you think I did the right thing?”

“Of course you did the right thing,” Yvanne said, rolling her eyes. “You always do the right thing, even when it’s bloody inconvenient for everyone around you. Look at you, showing mercy to war criminals and evil blood mages. You’ll be making nice with the darkspawn next.”

“Oh, _ don’t.” _ Avernus _ was _ evil, wasn’t he? What more, he was _ the problem. _ Because of men like him the people feared mages. Because of men like him, women like _ them _were locked away like animals. Because of men like him they’d never be truly free. If she’d been as good a mage—as good a Warden—as she purported to be, she would have struck him down.

But she had let him live. 

Had let him keep working, even.

“Sorry. I’ll stop.”

“I didn’t even do it out of mercy,” Loriel said quickly, before she let herself believe otherwise. “That had nothing to do with it.”

Yvanne raised a questioning eyebrow.

“I...” Loriel faltered, feeling the weight of the vial in her pocket. “I did it because I was curious. To see what he would find, if he kept going. He’d already done so much harm, why let it go to waste? And I was curious. That was why.”

Yvanne sighed and brushed her cheek with her thumb, shaking her head only slightly. “Oh, my dear. Oh, beloved. You’re going to have to face the truth someday, you know. You’re going to have to accept that you’re a good person.” And she said it with such honest true conviction that Loriel not only wanted to believe it, she wanted to make it true. She wanted to be everything Yvanne thought she was, kind and luminous, stepping only in sunlight, thinking only of goodness.

“Come here,” she mumbled.

Soldier’s Peak had only been the last of a long series of Warden-related journeys. After the Blight, the plan had been to rent a room in Denerim, some place with a nice kitchen and a huge bed, and just live for a while. They’d finally learn how to cook. They’d read every interesting book they’d come across. They’d explore the city, the country, the world.

But it never seemed to turn out that way. They didn’t know _ how _to just live, after so many years of merely surviving. Loriel couldn’t seem to focus on any book she bought, and all her attempts at cooking ended in acrid smoke and frustration.

They had each other, of course, and Maker, what a miracle it was, to have each other. But they were play-acting their notion of a normal life, not living one. It was as though the sun had blinded them. A bright dream, but a confused dream, an aimless dream. Loriel had no idea what to do with herself.

So when the petitioners for her attention came flooding in, she threw herself upon their mercies in relief. There was always somebody who needed the Warden—not any Warden, but _ the _Warden, the only one worth mentioning these days—and so they often paid their rent in vain, and their room in Denerim accrued more and more dust.

Yvanne seemed glad of it, at least. If Loriel was aimless, Yvanne was restless. She paced, and parked herself out on the balcony or the roof whenever she could, even when it was raining. It was the walls, she said. She couldn’t stand the walls. Keeping herself moving was better.

As for Loriel, a part of her longed for walls, but more truly she longed to again be the type of person who was content with walls. That girl was lost to her now. Someday she’d be ready to bury her.

“Listen,” Loriel murmured, breaking away, “How about we finally take that vacation? We’ve been discussing it for long enough.”

Yvanne's lips quirked. “Aren’t we on vacation now?”

“I believe what we are doing now may qualify as gainful employment.”

“Ah, well, could have fooled me. These little excursions of ours are so relaxing.” She tilted her head. “Where were you thinking?”

They discussed the sunny docks of Antiva, the jungles of Seheron, the grandeur of Val Royeaux. Yvanne carefully did not suggest seeking Loriel’s family in Highever. Loriel carefully did not suggest seeking Yvanne’s father and sisters. They'd go somewhere where nobody knew them, somewhere _nice_. They’d hear the rustle of the trees without watching their backs for werewolves. They’d see mountains without wading through hordes of dragon cultists. They’d walk barefoot on a beach, watching the waves crash on the shore, until all of this was behind them, and something new appeared on the horizon.

But when they returned to Denerim, there was a missive from Weisshaupt waiting, requiring a Warden-Commander at Vigil’s Keep, and thoughts of vacation were postponed indefinitely.

\--

Mhairi, the Grey Warden recruit, met them at the gate for the journey to Vigil’s Keep. That made Yvanne grumble. She’d been anticipating privacy along their journey, privacy denied them along the road to Soldier’s Peak and back, privacy denied them for nearly all their lives.

The recruit was eager, at least. She saw them coming long before they could have reasonably greeted her, and as soon as they were close enough, bent excitably at the waist. “Warden-Commander!” she exclaimed, addressing Yvanne.

Loriel laughed a bit behind her hand. “Wrong Warden," Yvanne said sourly.

Loriel had convinced Yvanne into the Grey Warden armor she'd rarely bothered to wear, for decorum's sake. A handful of months ago, she never would have agreed. Now she consented with only cursory grumbling. Normally, she wore whatever mismatched ill-fitting pieces of clothing she happened to like even a little bit, complemented with several pounds of the tackiest jewelry she could get her hands on. She was leaving almost all of it behind. That was one element of cloistered life she couldn't seem to shake; the notion of holding on to possessions still made her nervous, as though she might get in trouble for hoarding contraband.

So the Warden armor had the effect of making her look significantly more regal and commanding than she'd ever looked in her life.

The young woman’s awestruck gaze shifted to Loriel. “Oh, I—I hadn’t realized you were an elf.”

“That’s alright,” Loriel said, though that seemed strange. Surely it was known that the Hero of Ferelden was an elf? But then again, next to Yvanne, who could possibly think her to be _ the _ Grey Warden? “You know, Yvanne, if _ you _would prefer to take the role of Warden-Commander, I’m sure you would do—”

Yvanne cackled. “Absolutely not.”

“Forgive me. I meant no offense.” Mhairi looked at Yvanne some more. “If you are not the Hero, then you are…?”

“Minding my business,” Yvanne snapped. “And you should mind yours. And show some respect while you’re at it.”

Mhairi snapped into a smart salute. “Of course, ser.”

At least Yvanne seemed to enjoy making Mhairi salute and ingratiate herself at every drop of a hat. And Mhairi wasn’t the only one, either. It would be several more encounters before Yvanne was no longer mistaken for the new Warden-Commander by everyone she met. 

It made sense, after all. A tall dark human woman, of beauty and strength, compared to slight, gawky elf. It was to be expected.

“You know,” said Loriel, when they were beginning to near the Keep, “I think this might be just what we need.”

“More work?” Yvanne said sardonically. “More Warden stuff?”

“I mean, a chance to really settle down. A chance to build something. Maybe we can make it ours, even if it is Warden stuff. I mean, it’s not like we can get out of being Wardens. But a home sounds nice, doesn’t it?”

“Right,” Yvanne said. “You know how much I love things I can’t get out of.”

Loriel looked stricken. “Well, it’s not exactly a little cottage in the woods, but, well…just think about it. If we hate it, I promise we really will run away into the wilderness this time, and never be seen again.”

Yvanne smiled, and didn’t call out the lie. Loriel would stay for as long as the Wardens needed her, even and especially if she hated it. Yvanne knew that, and Loriel knew that, and felt a burst of gratitude that she wasn’t going to bring it up.

Sometimes it crashed upon her all over again, that this was real, really actually real, she and Yvanne were together, they loved each other, and even if things weren’t perfect, they were good. She had this. She really had this.

“At least it will be nice and boring,” Yvanne said. “I could stand for some boring.”

\--

After they had slain the darkspawn in the courtyard and the last ogre lay polluting the front steps with its excessive bleeding, they proceeded inside.

“I’m sorry,” Loriel fretted. “This isn’t going at all how I thought it would go.”

“It’s fine,” said Yvanne. “I didn’t actually want boring. I hate boring, you’re the one that likes it when things are boring. This is much better.”

“Is that really true?” Loriel said doubtfully.

“That’s right,” said Yvanne. “I was being sarcastic. You know how I am with my sarcasm. Don’t be dense.”

“I’m not being dense. You can’t blame me for wanting you to be happy.”

“I’m always happy. I’ve got you, haven’t I?”

That kind of thing still made Loriel grin like an idiot, and nearly caused her to miss the trio of shrieks emerging at the shadows to try and claw her face off, and which would nearly have succeeded did they not fall immolated to the ground a moment later.

Anders, of all possibly people, stood behind it, shaking his fingers to cool them off. He looked up, and saw them, and froze. “I didn’t do it,” he said.

Yvanne looked at him. She opened her mouth. They’d barely spoken in years. Not since before solitary. She last remembered him brushing past her in anger in shame, shortly before his most recent escape. She realized uncomfortably that she’d barely thought of him since her recruitment. He seemed part of another life entirely, and now here he was.

Loriel glanced between the two of them, wondering how long this awkward silence would stretch on.

Then it broke, and they both grinned. “You huge idiot,” Yvanne said. And if the hug she gave him, augmented with arcane warrior power, was more bone-crushing than was strictly necessary, then that was her own business, and no more than what he deserved.

Suddenly it was like no time had passed at all, and they were trading ribs and jokes like nothing had changed.

“So,” he said as they headed up the stairs, “what did I miss? Clearly I’ve missed _ something. _You two are Grey Wardens now?”

“We-ell,” said Yvanne, felling a Hurlock, “Loriel slew an archdemon, and now they’re making her the Warden-Commander. Jowan’s a blood mage, and he’s on the run now after becoming a traitor to the realm. We helped him escape by dealing with a demon. Also, we put a friend of ours on the throne of Ferelden, and then we made him sire a demon baby with a swamp witch, and now he’s not speaking to us. So you didn’t miss that much, really.”

“Yvanne,” Loriel hissed. “Not in front of—” She jerked her head towards Mhairi, but she was pointedly, politely ignoring everything they were saying. And anyway, Yvanne figured, Loriel was the Warden-Commander now. Who cared what anyone heard?

Anders paused. “Is this one of those two-truths-and-a-lie games, and I have to guess which was the lie? Because telling three lies in those games is called cheating, Yvanne, and cheating is wrong.”

“My moral compass is poorly calibrated,” Yvanne said. “Didn’t I just tell you all about the demon baby?”

Anders shook his head. “Sure, whatever. Anyway, that’s not what I meant by if I’d missed anything. I meant the _ important _thing. Are you two fucking yet?”

Loriel flushed instantly scarlet. “Is this—is this about that stupid bet? Because Jowan asked me that, too, and—”

“So you’re not,” Anders said, disappointed. “Alright, then, completely independent of the ten silver I have riding on this outcome, as Yvanne’s good friend, I have to intervene. The whole tower has been watching you two dance around each other for long enough, and it is my duty—nay, my _ calling— _ as a friend and a medical professional to inform you both that you must fuck. Everyone can see it. Everyone knows it. Why, it’s plain as day. No two mages have ever been so obviously, painfully drawn to each other in the entire history of Thedas, so really, why deny the inevitable? Why deny your _ feelings?” _

Yvanne let him carry on in that vein for nearly five whole minutes before Loriel lost her patience and told him.

\--

The Templar was still talking, carrying on as though she had every right, and suddenly Loriel couldn’t stand it anymore.

“No,” she said. Every head snapped towards her. Anders, already hunched in bitter defeat, among them.

She didn’t know what had shaken her more—the arrival of Alistair, or of the Templars. Both of them together were enough to render her nearly mute, leaving Yvanne, who wasn’t even the Warden-Commander, to do all the talking, even as Alistair stubbornly tried to hold this conversation without ever directly addressing her or even acknowledging Loriel’s presence.

And then the Templar—her name was Rylock, Loriel remembered, she’d been a crofter’s daughter before joining the Order, she remembered her as she remembered every little detail of their jailer’s lives—muscled her way past the king, and Yvanne’s whole posture changed. She stumbled over her next word. She’d gone from brazenly confident and self-assured to childishly defiant. This woman Rylock claimed that Anders was a murderer, from nowhere and nothing, and Yvanne was already on the defensive. Anders himself was resigning him to recapture before her eyes.

“You can’t just _ do _that,” Yvanne had said, and Loriel found herself again in the Arl’s chamber, a year younger, about to go from merely a theoretical blood mage to a real one. “Alistair—you boneheaded fool, stop ignoring me. Tell her she can’t do that.”

“How dare you speak to the king like that?” Rylock said, her hawkish eyes narrowing on her. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten you, Amell. You’re a troublemaker, and you will get what you deserve, sooner or later.”

Yvanne’s knuckles were white on her blackwood staff. “You—you can’t do that,” she repeated, and it was almost a whine.

Alistair shrugged, looking very interested in a nearby birch tree. “I’m afraid that she can, unfortunately.” He had the decency to look a little sorry for it, but not enough, never enough. And Rylock had started to say something else—

And Loriel said, “No.” It was the first time she’d spoken during the course of the whole conversation, and all eyes turned to her. 

“No,” she repeated. “She_ can’t_ do that.” And then she realized, she’d have to follow through on it. Rylock couldn’t just take Anders like that, of course she couldn’t, but why couldn’t she? What authority had Loriel— 

“Because I am the Warden-Commander of the Grey Wardens of Ferelden,” she heard herself say, “and I am invoking the Rite of Conscription. This man belongs to the Wardens now, and his fate is not under your jurisdiction.”

“_What?!” _Rylock half-barked. Surely she remembered Loriel, too, how quiet she’d been. Loriel recalled the woman had been kind enough to her. At least, not cruel. 

Rylock rounded on the king. “Your majesty, surely you won’t allow this.”

Loriel’s big black eyes bored into him. He hadn’t looked at her yet, and it seemed that he wouldn’t. _ If you ruin this, _ she thought, _ king or not, friend or not, I will end you. I will find a way to end you. _Would Alistair let an innocent man hang out of bitterness towards her? Was he so petty? Then she remembered Loghain and the Landsmeet and realized, coolly, that he was—at least that he could be. And then she thought, how easy it had been to take control of his mind once before, how easy it might be to do it again, if she only just reached out and—

“She is Warden-Commander,” Alistair said grudgingly, before she could finish that traitorous thought. “I’ll allow it.”

“What—but—very well.” Rylock jerked her chin up and straightened. “I suppose if you think it best, Your Majesty.” She turned on her heel and was gone faster than Loriel could possibly have hoped, taking her men with her. Alistair made a few more monarchical noises, and was gone a few minutes later. Loriel was left in her darkspawn corpse-littered courtyard, a small gaggle of new recruits on her hands.

“How about that?” Anders was saying, almost laughing in disbelief. “Me, a Grey Warden.”

“Don’t get too excited,” Yvanne was scoffing, “The initial hazing can be a real killer.” Oghren was slapping both of them on the back and roaring with laughter. All of it sounded far away. Loriel’s blood was rushing in her ears. She’d told a Templar no, and the Templar had listened. She’d _ had _ to listen. Loriel had _ made _ her listen.

Just as she and Yvanne had made Alistair listen, the night before the Battle of Denerim. 

Loriel started towards the Keep, dazed. Yvanne followed, electrified. “That was _ amazing,” _she was saying. “You really did that! You flicked Rylock away like an annoying gnat. You’re fulfilling so many of my dearest dreams these days. Like that thing you do with the candle wax—oh, hello Seneschal Varel.”

The Seneschal she’d somehow acquired was telling her something, and she had no idea what it was. Something about the Joining, something about a prisoner in the dungeons. She maintained her smile-and-nod protocol, which didn’t seem to quite satisfy him. He tried Yvanne instead, who was significantly more disagreeable, but responded in full sentences and had actual orders to issue. Within moments he’d poached Yvanne and Loriel was left standing in the courtyard alone.

She’d liked the part where she told a Templar no, and the Templar had gone away. What she didn’t like was just how much she liked it.

A hand fell on her shoulder. Loriel jerked away, but it was only Anders. She wished he wouldn’t look so grateful. There wasn’t anything to be grateful for.

“Hey,” he said. “I just wanted to thank you for that. Got to admit, it nearly shocked the robes right off me. Imagine that, little Loriel Surana mouthing off to a Templar, hey? Life’s full of surprises.”

“I wasn’t mouthing off,” Loriel mumbled. “You mouth off. Yvanne mouths off. I don’t mouth off.”

“Right, right. You just issue commands, like they used to do to us. But not anymore, eh? Hah, and here I thought you didn’t like me.”

“I _ don’t _ like you,” Loriel said, and she didn’t, but she suddenly realized that she didn’t remember why. She just knew she never had. “But you don’t deserve to hang. And you don’t deserve to…to have to go back.”

"Wow," he said, grinning. "I think that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me."

She pursed her lips, hesitating. "Listen," she said, "you don't actually have to go through with it."

"What do you mean?" he said, puzzled. 

"Become a Grey Warden." She flashed back to her own Joining, the blood, the darkness, the dreams..._she'd _dealt with it, but Anders wasn't like her. "It isn't...the safest occupation, or the safest initiation rite." She hesitated again. "At our Joining, two of the other recruits died."

"Trying to get rid of me, eh?"

"Trying to protect you," she snapped.

He sobered. "I appreciate the warning," he said, "but even at only half a chance of surviving...I like those odds better than my odds of making it a hundred leagues from here without the Templars catching up to me and dragging me back. They've still got my phylactery."

"Right," Loriel muttered. 

“Well, anyway.” He shuffled his feet. “Thanks. I mean it. Hey, it might even be fun. If Jowan were here it’d be a right little reunion tour. Maybe we should track him down, seeing as he’s a blood mage on the loose, and all that. Apparently.”

“Just try not to die,” she said, wondering if that were really possible, if Jowan was still out there, if he was okay. “Yvanne will be sad if you die, so you better not do it.”

He snapped a salute. “I’ll do my level best, Commander.”

\--

Anders didn’t die. Neither did Oghren. But Mhairi did. Her eyes rolled back into her head, and black blood came out of her mouth and spilled over her chin, and she fell, and lay twitching on the ground, and then she died.

They burned her body that night, the same night they disposed of the darkspawn corpses. Yvanne watched for as long as she could stomach it, but when the smell of burning flesh mixed with taint filled the air inescapably, she fled without a word.

Loriel finished overseeing the funeral alone, and when the first possible opportunity presented itself, she went to go look for Yvanne.

She found her on the balcony, gripping the stone balustrade. She didn’t react when Loriel approached.

“Are you alright?” she said, perfunctorily.

“Me? I’m wonderful. I’m amazing.” Yvanne bent further in on herself. Loriel couldn’t see her face. She waited.

“I just,” Yvanne said finally, “She shouldn’t have died. That was wrong.”

“I didn’t think you liked Mhairi much.”

“_Liked? _ Who gives a shit if I liked her? She’s _ dead.” _

“I know,” Loriel said. “I watched her burn to ash.” She paused, then added reproachfully, “You could have been there. I didn’t want to have to do that alone.”

“And I didn’t want any of this!” snapped Yvanne. “I didn’t want to be a Warden. I didn’t want to watch a woman choke on darkspawn blood and die. I didn’t want to watch her blighted corpse burned along with the darkspawn.”

“You think I wanted it?” Loriel said quietly.

No, she hadn’t wanted it. But she hadn’t chosen anything else about her life, either.

“I just hate that,” said Yvanne, inhaling sharply. “I hate everything about this. I hate how we’re still prisoners, of a different kind. I hate how we’re never going to get away from this.”

Loriel went to her, taking her cold hand and leaning against her shoulder. “Look,” she said. “I know this isn’t...ideal. But it’s what we have. Can’t we at least _ try _to make some kind of life here?”

“I don’t know. Can we?” Yvanne said dryly.

Could they? thought Loriel. Maker, she hoped so. She didn’t know what she’d do if they couldn’t.

“If we end up hating it, I promise we can run away,” said Loriel. “We can live in the woods. Where we’ll both starve to death, because neither of us can cook, let alone hunt and forage, but we’ll do it on our own terms, together. Does that sound okay?”

Yvanne sniffed, letting out an unsteady breath. “It sounds better.” She swiped at her eyes. “Maker, we’d be hopeless. I could burn water.”

“There you go.”

They leaned on each other, watching the stars, trying to forget the lingering smell of burning flesh.

“I’ll work on this Blight thing, okay?” Loriel said eventually.

Yvanne turned a skeptical eye on her. “How are you going to do that?”

“I don’t know yet. But I have ideas.”

A snort, a smile. “And that would be perfectly in character for you, wouldn’t it?”

She squeezed her hand.

“I guess I could replace the curtains,” Yvanne sniffed. “Have you seen them? They’re hideous.”

Loriel smiled. “Forget the curtains. Have you seen the bed in the Warden Commander’s quarters? It’s _ enormous.” _


	2. Chapter 2

The morning after their first night in the Keep, Loriel woke alone, sprawled over every inch of bed that her small body could cover. It seemed like the spirit of a particularly gutsy housecat had overcome her in the night. She noted the late-morning sun was already streaming in through the window, and was suddenly seized by the rigid full-body tension of one who simultaneously remembers all of their responsibilities at once.

She was scrambling to locate her clothes and start her second day as the Warden-Commander when the door opened to admit Yvanne, covered in dust and looking snippy. “I see you’re awake, Commander Blanket-Hogger," she said.

“I don’t hog blankets,” said Loriel, dishonestly. “Where were you?”

“Couldn’t sleep,” she replied tersely.

“Darkspawn dreams, or something else?” She frowned. “I thought you said they were getting better." The darkspawn dreams had never bothered her in the first place, but Yvanne still woke regularly with bags under her eyes.

“They are,” Yvanne said briefly. “Started off as darkspawn dreams, then changed into a regular dream _ about _darkspawn." She shivered. "Ugh, I hate that they talk now. Makes my skin crawl.”

Loriel had been thinking about this strange new type of darkspawn. She had a few theories, but they were still half-baked amorphous things, not worth discussing. “Have I missed anything important?”

“Don’t worry about it. I could hardly get out of the hallway without being assaulted by half a dozen sycophants demanding decisions and instructions. Apparently I’m a Warden-Lieutenant—when did _ that _happen?" Yvanne shook her head. "Now they're all asking me for instructions. Can’t anyone do anything for themselves around here? You’re lucky you slept through it.” 

Loriel struggled into her tabard, simultaneously trying to smooth down her hair. “There must be so much I need to do.”

“I took care of most of it." Yvanne reached over to straighten out her tabard, then fixed the part in her hair. "There you go. Ugh, but this place is a wreck! Bloody darkspawn really did a number on it. Soldier’s Peak was better kept.”

“Oh, I’m—I’m sure it’s not _ that _bad. You took care of most of it?”

“It’s pretty bad,” Yvanne insisted. “Some thief breaking in last night and they took him to the dungeon, only now it looks like the basement might be full of ghouls. Who just _ leaves _a basement full of ghouls?”

Loriel finished pulling on her boots and tightened her belt. “Come on, let’s go see about that thief.”

“That’s what you’re concerned with?” said Yvanne. “_ What about the ghouls?” _

\--

Loriel, somewhat bemusedly, told the Howe heir in the dungeons that he could take his things and go if he wanted, much to the palpable disapproval of his guards. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t manage to clear out before getting drawn into a shouting argument with Yvanne, who told him in so many words that his father was a syphilitic stain of a rat who deserved everything that he’d had coming to him, and that he was lucky the Commander wasn’t going harder on him, with what a rat bastard his father had been. Loriel didn't interfere. Yvanne seemed to find it therapeutic.

She was just about to go and see about those alleged ghouls when a private—where did they even come from?—arrived bearing a missive summoning the Commander (at her leisure, of course) to a meeting of the Keep’s administration. 

She hemmed and hawed and deflected, but then Yvanne, temporarily done shouting, told him, “Fine, then, let’s get it over with." And then they were both swept away into an antechamber meeting hall with the Seneschal, the captain, the treasurer, and another dozen administrators. All of them were looking at her with varying degrees of expectancy and skepticism.

Loriel spent the next several hours trying to absorb the myriad of details regarding Amaranthine’s military, economic, and demographic situation. The number of things she needed to do piled higher and higher, and the number of decisions that she was expected to make _ now _rather than later were rather more than she had been prepared for.

Why did any of these people think she knew a damn thing about finances or troop distributions? She spent most of those hours on the verge of panic. If it weren’t for Yvanne pressed casually against her shoulder, she really would have panicked. She half-suspected Yvanne was working some kind of low level healing spell, one of the difficult subtle ones that could calm the nerves.

But when Loriel made a decision, or voiced a hesitant opinion, they all listened. They deferred. After all, she was the Commander. Of course, she’d been the nominal leader during the Blight, had even lead armies, but this felt completely different. This felt...real. Substantial. 

She ended up tactfully delegating almost everything, anyway.

Only near the end of those long hours was she told that that evening, the assembled gentry of the Arling of Amaranthine had all come to swear their fealty to the new Arlessa.

Loriel was briefly confused, and then realized that _ she _was the new Arlessa. And while she was still internalizing that, she was nearly whisked away by a pair of brawny chambermaids, to be scrubbed clean and made presentable for the gentry. She had already gone rigid with tension and mute with inexplicable fear at the thought when Yvanne managed to repel them with a choice handful of words and a small but suggestive discharge of lightning to the flagstones. The chambermaids relented and took their leave.

“Come on, then,” Yvanne said.

“Since when do I have chambermaids?” Loriel said faintly, letting herself be lead to their quarters.

They had time to share a bath, heated by a rune of fire, and fix each other’s hair. Loriel spent a while wondering whether it was wise to wear her Warden uniform to this kind of function, then realized that she didn’t really have anything else to wear, anyway.

“This is ridiculous,” she fretted. “I didn’t even realize I was an Arlessa until today.”

Yvanne looked approvingly at her, carefully arranging a misplaced strand of hair. “You _ are _ an Arlessa _ , _aren’t you? Does that make me your mistress?”

“I think I’d have to be married to somebody else in order for you to be my mistress.”

“Are you sure?” Yvanne grinned. “ I’d really like to be your mistress, though. You could buy me expensive things and promise that you’d love to marry me, if only there were a way around the sheer scandal of it all.”

Loriel smiled. “What kinds of expensive things would you want?”

Yvanne examined her uncharacteristically bare wrists. “I could use some new bracelets."

Loriel kissed her wrist. "You'll have dozens."

By the time she made it back to the Great Hall a small gaggle of finely dressed local nobility were milling about the hall, along with their far less elaborate retinues. Very quickly she ended up separated from Yvanne as one noble after the other demanded her attention.

She didn’t quite get the impression that any of them exactly liked her, either.

But—that was fine, she told herself. Gracefully managing people who didn’t like her at all was what she had done all her life. 

And even though they didn’t like her, and probably would rather have been anywhere but here—here they were, swearing fealty to her.

She had just managed to exit a conversation with a sour-faced Bann Esemerelle when she felt a hand on her elbow.

“There you are,” said Yvanne. “Please talk to me away from all of these people for at least a short minute.”

Loriel checked to see if the coast was clear. “Here, this way.”

They dodged into a side passage, narrowly avoiding some nobleman that Loriel thought might have been called Lord Guy—but that couldn’t have been right. That was too ridiculous.

“Almost reminds me of old times,” Loriel laughed. “Hiding in corridors, just you and me.”

“I doubt that lot out there is any less dangerous than the old lot,” Yvanne sniffed. “I’ve been getting a bad feeling from these people all night. You’d better be on your guard.”

“I’m always on my guard," Loriel pointed out. "And you’re always being paranoid.”

“I certainly hope that's what I'm being.”

"Remember the time you were absolutely convinced that Leliana was a spy and a plant?"

"Yes, well..." Yvanne rolled her eyes. "I could easily have been right. At any rate, these nobs are not your friends. You should be careful."

Loriel shrugged. “They have no reason to like or trust me. I’m an elven mage, and a Warden. It must be hard for them to wrap their heads around having to bow to me.”

“An elven mage who saved all their skins!” said Yvanne. “What a bunch of ungrateful—”

“Oh, hush,” sighed Loriel, rubbing her upper arm in what she hoped was a soothing fashion. “It’s just politics. Politics, I can manage.” 

“Ugh. That makes one of us.”

Loriel’s eyes flicked up. “You didn’t say much. At the meeting, earlier today.”

Yvanne shrugged vaguely. “What did you need me for? It’s not as though administrative ability runs in the blood. Not that my father was much of an administrator.” It caught her off guard, hearing Yvanne mention her father. She hadn’t spoken of him in what must have been years. Maybe over a decade. 

“But you are,” she insisted. “You’re much better at dealing with the Seneschal than I am. I think he’s a little afraid of you. You gave him quite an earful last night.”

Yvanne sniffed. “It was no more than what he deserved.” She paused. “I _ did _ have some thoughts about troop distribution. I don’t trust that Garahel’s priorities.”

Loriel seized on that like a determined stray. “And I trust your thoughts. Perhaps you could...convey some of ‘my’ opinions to him?”

Her eyes glinted. “What’s in it for me if I agree?”

“I’ll tell you later, when we’re not in polite company.” She leaned in. “In _ excruciating _detail. I promise.”

Yvanne grinned. “Alright, then. I suppose your silver tongue’s convinced me again. I might even have a few suggestions for some other things you could do with it.”

“And I shall listen to them with bated breath.”

“Then I suppose I’ll go and give the Seneschal a piece of my mind. You better get back to this rabble.” She paused. “And be careful.”

“I will.”

Yvanne departed in an authoritative whirlwind just as a Bann that Loriel didn’t recognize came to ingratiate himself with the new boss.

Loriel adopted a gracious noblewoman’s smile. Perhaps she could get used to this.

\--

“I hate trees.”

“Anders, shut up, they’ll hear you.”

“They’re _ trees. _ They’re not liable to attack. _ ” _

Loriel snorted. “Who wants to tell him about the Brecilian forest?”

“Heh, heh,” said Oghren. “The poet-tree.” And he started guffawing so powerfully that he doubled over and dropped his axe. Yvanne snorted and started laughing too, and then Loriel’s reserved behind-the-hand chuckle rapidly got away from her until her hands were on her knees and she was gasping for breath.

“This is terrible,” Anders complained. “I missed out on all the inside jokes.”

“Quit whining,” said Yvanne. “We’re stuck together for long enough, we’ll make new ones—hey, watch out!”

Only a well timed force cage kept him from teetering directly into a hastily constructed pit of sharpened sticks.

“Andraste’s tits!” He peered over the pit. “Hey, Commander? If I need to take a piss, you’re coming with me.”

“Oh for the Maker’s sake,” said Loriel. “We’ve known each other since before either of us had body hair. Surely you could drop the title?”

“Sure. But you _ will _come with me, right?”

Loriel suppressed a smile, not very successfully. The sun was out and the air was warm. The forest was a wonderful verdant green, hazards aside, and although this was supposed to be a mission of import, to stop the attacks on merchants, she couldn’t help but feel this was the vacation she was finally getting to have. Anders and Oghren were trading increasingly elaborate insults and Yvanne was humming tunelessly, plucking flowers from the bushes to weave into her hair, and everything seemed, for once, good and bright.

Then the trees attacked.

\--

“I am officially sick to _ death _of talking darkspawn.”

“I know, love.”

“They’re bloody _ creepy! _And now they feel they have the right to just go out and kidnap Wardens whenever they feel like it? The nerve of those things!”

“I don’t think that one was a normal darkspawn.”

“Just what about this is _ normal?” _

“Well…” Loriel shrugged. “Not much. That’s why it’s interesting. Don’t you think it’s interesting?”

“No,” Yvanne said stubbornly. “I hate these evil bastards and that’s that.”

“I don’t think this Architect is evil,” Loriel said thoughtfully. “I don’t think he realizes what he’s doing is wrong. It’s worth investigating.”

Yvanne gave her an exasperated look. “You know, when I said you’d make nice even with darkspawn, I _ was _joking.”

“I’m not ‘making nice,’” Loriel protested. “I’m just trying to understand.”

Yvanne shivered. “I’d just as soon forget about it. I can’t wait until we’re done here.”

Loriel frowned. “It’s not _ all _so horrible, is it?”

“No, not all,” Yvanne admitted. “The bed’s nice. Good to hang around Anders again. Better than the Tower. But we can hardly _ stay _here, can we? Not in the long term.”

Loriel was silent.

"Can we?" Yvanne insisted.

"I was sort of hoping we could," Loriel admitted.

"Why?" said Yvanne. "Really, what is there for us here?"

It wasn’t so much that Loriel liked being the Warden-Commander all that much, but it was at least something she could do. She had good people serving her, she had a goal. She even had authority. When she tried to imagine leaving the Wardens for good, going out into the world, it all felt like one big terrifying blank.

How were you supposed to plan for a future you didn’t ever think you’d get to have?

"I suppose we _could _stay," Yvanne said anxiously, when Loriel hadn't replied for too long a moment. "If that was what you wanted. Is it what you want?"

“No, you’re right,” Loriel said quietly. “We’ll deal with these darkspawn. Then we’ll see.”

\--

Loriel actually quite liked the Deep Roads.

The weight of the earth and of the darkness felt almost like a blanket. Parts of the tunnels were so quiet she could hear the blood rushing in her veins, and so dark that without magelight they swallowed even the memory of light.

Anders hated them, and when she’d asked if he preferred to stay at home, she’d received a vehement yes. Yvanne hated them too, but when Loriel suggested she could stay and mind the Keep if she preferred, she’d sniffed “Don’t insult me.” Now she was here beside her in the dark and in the deep, and Loriel was selfish enough to be happy about it. At any rate, they’d done what they came here to do. They’d be back at the Keep within a day or two.

Yvanne had spent most of this particular trip arguing with the Legionnaire of the Dead traveling with them now. She’d healed her wounds when they first found her. Now she'd spent the past several hours trying to convince her not to die.

Over and over, Sigrun insisted that she was already dead, perfectly cheerfully. And there was something about her that Loriel couldn’t quite place, something that tore at her heart with its familiarity. 

“Why don’t you join the Grey Wardens instead?” Loriel said impulsively. “You’ll still be serving your oath.”

Yvanne broke off halfway through an impassioned defense of the joys of living. “Right,” she said, recovering quickly. “You might even get to die. Happens to us all the time!”

"I...guess I would be keeping my oath," said Sigrun.

And just like that, they had a new recruit. 

Yvanne fell to the back of the party, where she grumbled semi-audibly to Oghren and Nathaniel Howe about various things she hated about the Deep Roads, leaving Loriel at the front with Sigrun, who at least knew the Deep Roads better than most. Loriel answered her questions about Warden life, learned a bit more about her, feeling a vague sense of deja vu the entire time.

They had to stop to sleep before they’d fully made it out of the Deep Roads. Yvanne had been quiet the past hour, laying a bedroll next to Loriel’s and staring up at the darkened stone ceiling.

“You know it’s the only thing that would have convinced her,” Loriel murmured to her, fingers resting lightly on her elbow.

“I know,” Yvanne said darkly. “Another one into the grinder, I suppose.”

“Yvanne…”

“Whatever. I hope she lives.”

“Me too.”

Loriel _ did _hope it. She was full of hopes these days. Perhaps unwarranted ones, perhaps not. In any case, by the time they reached the surface, she’d been talking to Sigrun long enough that when she watched the Legionnaire’s eyes widen in astonishment at the sight of it, she could finally pinpoint just what it was about Sigrun that was so familiar—she looked just how Loriel had felt the year and a half ago when she’d first left the Tower.

\--

Somehow, what with one thing or another, Yvanne ended up the one charged with looking after the possessed corpse. Presumably because she was a spirit mage, as though it even worked like that.

But ultimately, she had no problem with this state of affairs, because far as possessed corpses went, Yvanne liked Justice a _ lot _.

It was dark, but lightening—less than an hour before sunrise. Yvanne was using her staff to probe the dense forest trail in front of her, seeing mostly by the light of the spirit’s glowing eyes.

“I still don’t understand,” the spirit was saying. “You were subject to injustice. Yet you have no intent to do anything about it?”

“Nope,” said Yvanne. “C’mon, Justice, we’ve been over this.”

“Why not?” He said it very earnestly, like he really _ wanted _to understand.

Yvanne sighed. They’d had this conversation half a dozen times, but all the spirits she’d ever known were like this. “I’m not like Anders,” she said. “I never run away. I _ tried _ railing against the Circle. I even used to think I was proving something by yelling and stomping and making it _ hard _for them.”

“Then why did you stop?”

“Because all it got me was a lot of pain! Me, and people I cared about. And it didn’t change a damn thing.”

“Then you should try again.”

“How many times am I supposed to try before it kills me?” Yvanne demanded. “And I think it _ would _have killed me, if not for Loriel. I’d be dead, and the Circle would still be there, grinding people like me into bonemeal all the same. How is that justice?”

“I don’t know,” the spirit admitted. “But I cannot believe that doing nothing can be the right thing to do. It may not be easy, but it must exist.”

“Why must it?” she said. 

He had no answer to that.

“I’m tired, Justice," she said. "I’m tired of fighting. I just want to live.” 

She got the distinct impression that the spirit disapproved. Maybe even pitied her lack of resolve. 

“Listen,” Yvanne said, squinting in the gradually lightening darkness. She knew what she was looking for was around here _ somewhere. _“You’ve got to get this through your head if you’re going to be a permanent resident of the mortal plane. Sometimes there’s isn’t justice. Usually not. There’s just...living, or not. That’s it.”

The spirit was quiet. “Perhaps. But that is why I am here.”

“See, that? That’s the exact kind of thinking that you’re going to have to let go of.”

“I cannot let go of it,” he pointed out. “That would be a corruption of my purpose.”

“I’m not so sure that’s true,” she said. “I’m not an _ expert _at spirit lore or anything, but I’ve noticed a lot of contradictions between what the texts say, and what some of the spirits I’ve actually met are like. There’s a lot of contradiction between different magical traditions, a lot that isn’t clear. I don’t think it’s as simple as all that.”

“You might be learned in spirit lore, but I _ am _a spirit,” Justice said stiffly.

Yvanne threw her hands up. “What do you want me to say? The world is horrible! I’ve seen things that would slough the skin right off your skull. You try to run around fixing all the injustices in the world, you’ll lose it.”

“It?” the spirit said, puzzled.

“Your peace of mind, your sanity, the remnants of your skin. Whatever. It’s an expression.”

“We shall see.”

Yvanne certainly hoped he wouldn’t take it as a challenge. “Sure, whatever. Never mind all that. I’m going to show you something that’ll knock you right out of your armor.”

“Why would I want to be knocked out of my armor?”

“No, I mean—you’ll like it.”

“What is it?”

She carefully drew back a curtain of moss in the hollow of a tree to reveal a nest of tiny ugly creatures little more than fuzz, beaks wide open. In the quiet of the dawn their peeping was the loudest sound in the woods. She'd found this sparrows nest last week on patrol.

They watched them as the sun rose, hushed. The world began to wake, suffused in the pinkish early morning light. For a long time neither spoke.

“Sigrun would like these,” the spirit said eventually.

“Yeah,” Yvanne said. She bet that Sigrun would. She was even worse than Justice was, sometimes.

\--

Loriel had been busily avoiding the Seneschal, up in the Commander’s study pretending to draft letters to various dignitaries, but really scribbling down all her thoughts on the talking darkspawn situation. Many things had become much clearer in the past weeks, but unless she could corner the Architect himself again and thoroughly interrogate him, she doubted she could figure it out herself. 

She was idly thinking of ways she might track him down when Yvanne whirled into the room. “We need to talk.”

“Is this about the ghouls in the basement?” Loriel said distractedly. “Sorry, I keep forgetting, I’ll clear them out this week—” 

“Not the ghouls,” Yvanne snapped. “It’s about the nobles.”

Loriel relaxed. “Oh, them. What about them?”

“I think I was right to be suspicious that night they all swore fealty,” Yvanne said. “I’ve been keeping an ear out and I’ve talked to the Seneschal and he agrees with me.”

“About what?”

“That there’s a conspiracy.”

Loriel snorted. “A conspiracy? _ Really?” _

“Why are you laughing? This is serious!”

“Oh, I know, it just sounds...very improbable.”

“Is that so surprising?” Yvanne demanded. “Conspiracies do happen on occasion.”

“I suppose.” Loriel shrugged. “I don’t think it’s much to be worried about.”

“If it isn’t much to be worried about then you won’t mind taking precautions,” Yvanne insisted. “For _ my _sake. I had a few ideas—why are you smiling?”

Loriel tried to hide it, but it was useless. “I think it’s very dear that you’re worried for me. It’s a pleasant change of pace.”

“Stop it. I know very well that you’re perfectly capable of taking care of yourself, and everyone else besides. But you shouldn’t ignore this.”

“I’ll admit I’m not especially worried about assassins. Remember the last one?” 

“I do wonder how he’s doing sometimes,” Yvanne said vaguely. “But you’ll remember that back then we were on high alert, had a nightly camp guard, and were never far from our weapons.”

“We’re never far from our weapon,” Loriel pointed out. She demonstratively lit a torch across the room, arms crossed.

Yvanne made a frustrated noise. “At least consider some of the plans Varel and I came up with.”

Loriel continued to try and fail to stop smiling. “Alright, let me hear it.”

“We go to the farmhouse where intelligence suggests the conspirators are hiding, and wipe them all out.”

“That strikes me as,” Loriel paused, “somewhat extreme.”

Yvanne rolled her eyes. “Alright, fine—then we take a hostage. ‘Invite’ one of them over for an extended visit, and don’t permit them to leave. They try anything, they’ll see what happens.”

“That may perhaps make me even less popular than I already am.”

“Except for the part where there is _ already _a conspiracy against you. Hard to get less popular than that.”

“Talk is cheap.” Loriel shrugged. “Let them mutter. Doing anything will just kick up more dust.”

“But—”

“Yvanne,” Loriel said firmly, “it’s going to be fine. Nothing’s going to _ happen _to us.” She sounded more sure than she felt, but suddenly the need to convince Yvanne that this was true outweighed the importance of her own doubt and fear.

“You don’t know that,” Yvanne challenged.

Loriel looked at her. “Is this really about the conspiracy?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know.” Yvanne started to pace the room. “Something just seems wrong.”

“What does?”

She shook her head, clenching her fists. “Will it sound crazy if I say that I don’t know?”

“Of course not.”

“I...just…”

“You’re not happy,” Loriel stated simply.

“No, I am,” Yvanne insisted, shoulders sloping, but it sounded too much like she was trying to convince her. “I’m happier than I’ve ever been, even with all this darkspawn garbage. I’m with you, aren’t I?”

Loriel knew she didn’t look persuaded. Yvanne nearly swooped across the room to take her hands. “I _ am _happy,” she insisted. “But..."

"But?"

"But a part of me keeps waiting for something to go wrong. For the other shoe to drop.”

“_ What _shoe?”

“I don’t know! I don’t know, I don’t know!" She rubbed her temples, pressing the heel of her palm into her eyes. "But there has to be one, hasn’t there? There always has been.”

Loriel had to admit that there had. But she couldn’t bear to say it, to make it real. 

“Every morning I wake up and I see you and I remember where we are and make myself relax,” said Yvanne, and it tore at Loriel's heart, to hear her sound like that--“But...I have to _ make _myself. Maybe I always will. Maybe it’s always going to feel like this.”

“It won’t,” Loriel said with more confidence than she felt.

Yvanne let go, pursing her lips and staring at a bookshelf. “How do you know that?”

“I don’t,” Loriel said mildly, forcing herself to sound mild and calm and perfectly at ease. “But I trust that, even if something _ does _go wrong, we’ll come through to the other side together. I trust in us. In you.”

“It’s not about trust.” 

Loriel sighed, and said with all the tenderness in the world, “Oh, Yvanne...come here.”

Yvanne trembled, staring at the ceiling. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. Just...come here."

Eventually, she came. They went to bed, even though it was hardly late afternoon, and Loriel got no more work done that day, and it did not trouble her at all.


	3. Chapter 3

Yvanne didn’t remember what she had gone to Amaranthine for, afterward. Somebody had needed something from the city market. Anders, maybe? He’d been there. Loriel hadn’t come, due to some pressing meeting or another, but that was fine. When they’d first straightened things out between them, and for months after that, they’d been joined at the hip, awash with new-old feelings, but that had been then. They were hardly a brand-new couple unable to stand a moment apart _ now _. It should have been fine.

She hadn’t been expecting to see a familiar face.

Yvanne caught sight of Wynne too late to avoid her, and too early to just walk past her. Worse, Wynne had spotted her, too, at almost the same moment.

“Amell,” the old woman said by way of greeting. “How nice to see you well.”

If Loriel had been here she would have smiled pleasantly and talked to Wynne about nothing whatsoever, maybe offered to do her a favor, and the conversation would have ended with everyone feeling a little bit better about themselves. And probably later Yvanne would have made some kind of snotty comment and Loriel might have rolled her eyes, or maybe snickered in guilty agreement, or just put an arm around her waist as she grumbled.

But Loriel wasn’t there, and Yvanne had to face Wynne alone.

“Right,” Yvanne said. “How nice.”

During the Blight, she had resented Wynne’s presence with their group. She had tolerated it only because Loriel had insisted they needed every hand they could get, and anyway Yvanne knew her own skills as a healer were nothing compared to a senior mage’s. Probably they still weren’t—Yvanne had spent less time pursuing spirit healing in the past year than she had on playing at being a swordswoman. And she wasn’t much good at that, either.

Wynne had made a brief overture at rekindling that relationship, an overture which Yvanne was quick to crush. Having had it made abundantly clear to her that Yvanne would not be tolerating her input on anything she did, Wynne had refocused to Loriel. Loriel was a much better student, it was true. She had smiled and nodded and agreed entirely with everything Wynne advised, and then ignored all of it to do what she wanted instead.

Yvanne had hated her so much, for so long.

In her teenage memory Wynne was _ worse _ than the Templars. She’d _ collaborated. _ She’d made excuses and agreed with their hateful lies and tacitly allowed it all to happen. Yvanne had seen her treat people who’d been beaten, people who’d been whipped, who’d been raped. Seen her saying nothing, like it was alright, like it was fine. She’d hated her complicity, hated her kind voice, hated her _ patience, _hated how she’d tried to be Yvanne’s mother when Yvanne had never had one and had never wanted one, anyway.

She hated that in a weak and watery sort of way, she almost could have loved her.

She hated that looking at her now, just a little older, just a little more tired—Yvanne didn’t hate her anymore.

Where had the hatred gone? She searched for the raw and bleeding center of venom and rage, and yes, it was still there, perhaps it would never go away, but for now it was dormant. When had it left her, so bereft and without direction? During the Blight, when she’d first sorted things out with Loriel? No. Not then. Not the night after, either, or the one after that. But somehow, little by little, she had changed.

Now when she looked at the old woman, she felt only a vague and piercing sadness and regret that it hadn’t been different.

Before she could stop herself, Yvanne’s lips were moving. “I—uhm. Would you maybe—would you maybe like to get a drink?” she said, hardly believing the words coming out of her mouth. “And you can tell me how you’ve been. And I know you like wine. And the Crown and Lion is nearby.”

Yvanne at least had the satisfaction of catching the old woman off guard. “Well,” Wynne said, “I must say, I wasn’t expecting that. And truth be told, I don’t have much time…” Yvanne’s heart seized with relief and disappointment, “…but perhaps I can make some, for you.”

Her stomach clenched. “Right. Okay.” She glanced round for Anders but he was nowhere to be found. She’d last seen him speaking with an elven woman she didn’t recognize. This, too, brought relief and disappointment. She’d be doing this by herself. “This way, then.”

The Crown and Lion was just loud and crowded enough to disappear in, but still warm and bright to not cloy. They sat. Wynne took wine. Yvanne took something bright blue and caustic that tasted like fire and ice at the same time. It didn’t do much to calm her nerves, but it did seem to do something.

They talked of nearly nothing at all. Wynne asked after Loriel. Yvanne said she was fine. She told her Anders was a Warden now. Wynne asked how he was, in a tone of faint disapproval. Yvanne said he was fine, too. She mentioned about Oghren also being a Warden now. How nice that was, Wynne said, sounding almost but not quite sincere.

And it was utterly vacuous, and very nearly not so horrible, until Wynne seemed to forget completely who she was speaking to.

“Have you considered at all,” Wynne said, “returning to the Circle?”

At first Yvanne didn’t understand her. Surely nobody could say something so insane on purpose. “What? _ No. _Why in the void would I do that?”

“To help rebuild,” Wynne said. “After what happened, things are—well, not ideal. Every pair of talented hands helps.”

“I’ll kill myself before I ever go back to a Circle,” Yvanne said, and drank the rest of whatever was in her mug.

“I see,” Wynne said crisply. “Well, I suppose not everything can change at once.”

“It won’t change at all,” Yvanne said. “Ever.”

“Of course you think so now, dear. No matter. I’ve said my piece.”

A number of responses sprung to Yvanne’s mind, each more awful than the last. She rose slightly to spit out one or the other, the motion coming as easily as breathing, but at just as soon, they died on her lips. She thought about relating the whole incident to Loriel later, and how disappointed she’d be, how she’d pretend that she wasn’t but still sigh and look away from her. 

“Fine,” Yvanne bit out instead. “It doesn’t matter.”

Wynne sensed that the truce was coming to its natural conclusion. “But as I said,” she said, “I don’t have very much time. I am on my way to Cumberland, for the convening of the College of the Magi, and my colleague is missing.”

“Well! That sounds like a whole lot of none of my business,” Yvanne said cheerily, wondering if she ought to order a third one of whatever it was she’d just drunk.

“On the contrary,” said Wynne, “It is very much your business. You are still a mage, and the legal affairs of mages concern you. The Libertarians are voting to break away from the Chantry entirely.”

Yvanne snorted. “Yeah, I’ll bet they’ll achieve lots that way. Let’s just vote our troubles away! That’ll work!”

“If the vote goes through, we may have a disaster on our hands.” Wynne looked steadily at her. “You truly care not at all?”

“I truly care not at all.”

“Then what do you care about, I wonder?”

Yvanne wasn’t about to answer _ that. _“I hope the vote does go through and I hope there is a huge disaster,” she said. “And I’m not a mage, I’m the Warden-Lieutenant. This was a bad idea, and I’m done talking to you now. Goodbye.”

She stood up, rattling the chair so hard that it fell to the flagstones with a clatter. She started to stomp away, but not fast enough.

“Hmph. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. At this rate it’s a matter of when disaster strikes, not if,” Wynne said, ostensibly to herself—but just loud enough.

Yvanne turned. “_ What _did you say?”

Wynne shook her head. “It was clear to me even during the Blight. If, as you say, you are the Warden-Lieutenant, then Warden you must be—but to be a Warden is to put duty above anything else. Loriel understands duty, but _ you _ do not. You have changed very little since you were a child. I had hoped she would be good for you, but you remain as selfish and impulsive as ever. I fear very much what your relationship with Loriel will bring to her, to you, and to everyone around you. Your actions will reflect on _ all _mages, mark my words.”

Yvanne burned. “You’re a horrible mean old woman and you don’t have anything to teach me, and you’re _ wrong _about—about all of that! To the void with you!”

She came away blistering, humiliated, feeling stupid for having ever had a single tender feeling towards Wynne, or the Warden recruits, or anyone, or anything. 

—

“Oh, thank goodness, you’re back, I wanted to—you’re upset. What’s upsetting you?” Loriel stopped up short, tilting her head.

“I’m not upset. Nothing’s upsetting me. Quit worrying.” Yvanne closed the door behind her, tapping her foot. It had been late when she’d come back to the Keep, and she’d gone to her and Loriel’s chambers, expecting to at least be able to sink into a warm bed, but Loriel hadn’t been there. She’d been in the Warden-Commander’s study, her eyes drooping over a scattered bunch of parchments. 

Loriel placed her knuckles on her cheek, blinking slowly.

“Alright,” said Yvanne. “I ran into Wynne.”

“Oh. How is she doing?”

“I don’t know. She’s fine. She’s going to some College of the Magi thing in Cumberland, or something.”

Loriel sat up straighter. “They’re convening? Over what?”

“I think the Libertarians are voting to secede from the Chantry. Something like that. Who cares! That’s not the important part.”

“It’s not? Then what’s the important part?” Loriel furrowed her brows. “I would think that an attempt to leave the Chantry would be extremely important.” 

Yvanne didn’t seem to have heard her, pacing feverishly. “She said—well, all sorts of things—and she had this _ expression _on her face, like—sure, other people looked at me like that, but Wynne didn’t used to. I hate her! Maker, even when I make an effort, it never matters.”

“But what did she say?”

_ When disaster strikes, not if—changed very little—selfish, impulsive— _

“I don’t really remember,” Yvanne said. She ran out of steam and collapsed at the desk, burying her head in her hands. “It’s not important.”

“Okay,” Loriel agreed. “It’s not important.”

She felt Loriel’s hands on her weary shoulders. “So what is important?”

“What’s important is,” Yvanne said fiercely, “is that I love you.” She lifted her head to kiss her fully. She stood—_ selfish— _ she wrapped her arms around her, and she felt so easy and familiar and perfectly correct— _ what do you care about, I wonder?— _Loriel made a hungry noise in the back of her throat, and she fisted her hands in her hair, hoping somehow to kiss her hard enough to scrub the afternoon's events off her skin.

The door opened. They broke off.

Anders waved. “Sorry to interrupt. I’ve got something sort of important to tell you about.”

—

The three of them sat in the Warden-Commander’s office, on the floor in a loose circle. The door was locked, barred, spelled shut. Loriel had insisted.

“This could be big,” Yvanne said.

“It could be a big trap,” Loriel said. “Like when we went after Jowan’s phylactery. Remember that?” 

“But that ended out alright, didn’t it?”

“All I’m saying is it’s an opportunity,” Anders said.

“Loriel,” Yvanne said, “they might have ours there, too. Anders said they moved the whole cache. If it really is still there…”

“I know. I know, Yvanne.” If she could get Yvanne’s phylactery, her own phylactery, that would be it. The last thread severed. Not total safety, never total, but much closer to it.

She bit her lip. “Maybe…maybe there’s another way. I could write to the Circle, as Warden-Commander. Demand the phylacteries for Warden business. I’m not sure if it’s legal, but it might be. I could look in the codes. Even if it’s not, I have influence…”

“And if they refuse?” Yvanne insisted. “It took the king’s authority to even get Anders recruited. Hell, both his _ and _ mine recruitments were carried out over loud objections. They’ll never let you have them.”

“If the Crown supports me, too, then—”

“You know he won’t.”

Loriel fell silent. She did know.

“Look,” said Anders, raising his hands, palms up, “forget I said anything. Don’t worry about it. I’m a big scary mage, you know. Just give me official, Commander-y leave, and I’ll go alone. Anything goes tits-up, it’ll be on me. But if we don’t do it _ now _they might not be there tomorrow.”

“Absolutely not,” Loriel said at once. “I couldn’t possibly allow it.”

“What?” Yvanne said, like she couldn’t believe what she was hearing, but also like it was exactly what she expected. “How can you say that? Loriel, if there’s any chance at all—”

“I mean,” Loriel said wearily, “I couldn’t possibly allow him to go alone.” Not so long ago, she would have said that she was doing this for Yvanne, only for Yvanne, and hang the rest of them. And it would have been true. She wished it still was.

She sighed. “No. We go together.”

"I—really? I mean, great!" A smile cracked across his face, bright and sunny and ridiculous. He swept them both up in a grateful hug, then hastily backing off, still smiling. She told him to come back around midnight, and off he went.

"Thank you," Yvanne told her later, so seriously, so earnestly, as though there were anything to be grateful for. As though Yvanne wouldn’t have gone with her friend, even if Loriel had attempted to forbid it. As though she was doing for just for her in the first place.

—

Her mistake was in not bringing anybody else.

She’d thought about it, very carefully. Oghren almost would have worked, even if that did mean subjecting Loriel to the journey to Amaranthine in the company of Yvanne, Anders, _ and _Oghren all trading jests, trying to out-do each other in overt horribleness. That by itself would have been acceptable, but could the old warrior be trusted to keep quiet about this? She didn’t doubt his loyalty, but supposing he got drunk, and he was always drunk, and let something slip, and something got back to the wrong person, and the whole legitimacy of Loriel’s command fell to shambles as everyone together remembered what she was?

Velanna was a mage herself, and as much at risk as any of them. She couldn’t ask her. Nathaniel Howe, for all his posturing, would follow orders, she was sure of it. But he was a human nobleman, or he had been. He knew the Chant. She had no reason to believe he didn’t believe it was all true, all the parts about magic. What would he think of his Commander, if he found out she was willing to defy the Chantry, to shake off that yoke? No, she couldn’t trust him.

She could have trusted Sigrun—what did casteless dwarves care for surface mores about magic?—but Loriel hated to put the Legionnaire in any danger, when she was so void-bent on throwing herself into it all of the time. Of all the new recruits, she liked her best. Grey Warden duties were one thing, but this desperate attempt on the phylacteries was base fear, pure vanity. She couldn’t justify it. She couldn’t ask a good woman to do this for her. Not even for all three of them.

And so foolishly, they had gone alone.

They’d expected guards. When there weren’t any, Loriel should have known to turn everyone around. But she hadn’t.

Because she’d wanted the damn phylacteries. For herself. For Yvanne, too, and for Anders, but also for herself. It frightened her, how much she wanted it. She shouldn’t have wanted it, not this much. 

The door wasn’t even locked. It had been _ so obvious. _

The warehouse was dark inside. Yvanne lit a spirit-light, casting the space in a greenish hue, though it did not quite reach the corners. The wisp hovered in place, keeping near Yvanne like a child to its mother. 

Loriel was thrown back to the day after her Harrowing. How afraid she’d been, how horrified. Had she been afraid? She must have been…but when she thought back to that journey, she found that she could hardly remember it. Only a few snatches of speech, a few fragmented images. She had been outside herself, a prisoner within herself watching events unfold against her will.

But she was not a prisoner now. And she was beginning to remember…

Loriel gripped her staff and gestured them forward to the next room, where the phylacteries would be.

But the warehouse was empty. Of course it was.

A heavy door slammed shut behind them.

A mundane orange light joined the ghostly green. There were heavy booted footsteps, the clank of plate armor.

“Stop right there.”

Loriel stopped. She turned. She adopted a pleasant smile.

“Ser Rylock,” she said, not missing a beat. “Should you not return to your post at Kinloch? Surely they will be needing your help with the rebuilding.”

Rylock’s hawkish gaze pierced her, but only for a moment. She looked through her, not at her. Loriel was an afterthought. “Warden-Commander,” she said by way of greeting, and nobody could miss the sardonic note in the way she spoke the title. “How unfortunate it is to see you. There is some unpleasant business my men and I must complete.”

Anders said something flippant, something rude. Loriel ignored it. This would be delicate.

“If this has anything to do with one of my men,” she said evenly, “then I am afraid the position of the Crown is against you. These Wardens are entirely under my jurisdiction.”

“As though your jurisdiction could mean anything,” said Rylock, and she said it not unkindly. She said it as though it was a mere fact of life, that Loriel was perhaps too dim to fully grasp. “In this, Chantry law supersedes that of the Crown.”

Loriel opened her mouth to say something else, but Rylock was through with talking.

Two Templars against three mages. No fair contest at all.

The first Smite was enough. It boiled the lyrium in her veins, set it flaming and freezing at once. Loriel had never experienced it before. She lost awareness of everything but her body, all the magic ripped out of it. If Yvanne screamed, she didn’t hear her. She did not remember falling, but her cheek ground against the dirt floor, her shoulders trembling, no air in her lungs.

And that was it. Total incapacitation. Even if Loriel could have moved or thought fast enough through the haze of breathless pain, she had no mana, and neither did Yvanne, neither did Anders—he was as good as dead, and there was no telling what would happen to Yvanne. 

She struggled to cast a spell, any spell, but it was like drawing water from a stone. She was cut off from the Fade.

How easy it was for them, how almost thoughtless. Why even wear armor? Just for show? They didn’t need it. Loriel was the greatest entropy mage Kinloch had seen in generations, the Hero of Ferelden, the Warden-Commander, the Arlessa of Amaranthine, and all of that was so much debris in a ditch. Right now she was an uppity robe who’d gotten above herself, being put back in her place. What did it matter, Commander? What did it matter, Arlessa? She was still just a mage. 

One of the Templars stepped closer to her, nudging her with the side of his sabaton. She couldn’t see his face, but he’d drawn his sword. The naked blade was within her reach.

She thought fast, and acted faster. She grasped the blade hard. It bit into her skin—pain shot through her, bright and blooming and wonderfully welcome. They’d cut her from the Fade, but not from herself, not from her own native power.

With a thought, the man’s blood was boiling in his veins. He jerked, his blade cutting deeper into Loriel’s hand—unfortunate, how unfortunate for him, now all three of them were in her control, now all three of them were boiling in their blood.

They did not even scream, for they had not the control over their bodies to produce a scream. They were frozen place, helpless.

She lay in the dirt for a moment, all her concentration bent upon maintaining the spell. She forced herself to sit, then stand.

They stood there, twitching. She could feel them struggling against her, but any move they made would only hurt them worse. If their faces were contorted in pain, it was hidden by their helmets. But they were still alive.

It would need a deeper cut, less clumsy this time. Now, with the Smite beginning to wear off, Loriel’s hands were steady. This time the blood flowed smoothly, drip drip dripping on the dirt. This time she would have power enough.

She extended a hand, and crushed it into a fist. Three hearts collapsed at once, then three metal-shod bodies hit the ground. She felt them die when her control relinquished.

The Wardens, the former wards, were alone in the warehouse.

They were safe.

Loriel turned woozily to her companions. Yvanne seemed to be alright, although for some reason she couldn't quite see her face clearly. She hadn't been thinking of at all of her—or Anders—a moment ago when she'd been helpless on the dirt floor. She made a note to feel guilty about it later, when she didn't feel quite so lightheaded.

“I’m sorry you had to see that,” she meant to say, but somehow it came out as “M’sor…seethe…”

The world seemed to spin chaotically. Somehow she was on the ground again, but this time someone’s arms were around her. They looked awfully blurry, but Loriel would know Yvanne’s touch anywhere.

“Oh, Maker, you’re so pale…can you hear me? Loriel, love? I don’t have any lyrium on me—fuck, that was so much blood…”

“Here, I’ve got some.” The other voice. A moment later, the cool-water feeling of a healing spell. She shuddered. Pure spirit magic always felt strange to her.

Loriel’s heart still beat against her ribs like a caged bird, but things didn’t seem so blurry now. “I’m alright,” she assured. “We…we’ve got to get out of here. Now.” She tried to struggle up, and couldn’t quite make it. Yvanne lifted her, looping an arm around her waist, her fingers digging into her side. The Smite must have still been affecting her. Normally she was easily strong enough to take Loriel’s entire weight. 

“Wait. We can’t leave. What are we going to do with the bodies?” Yvanne said. “Anyone would be able to tell it was blood magic.”

“Leave them to rot and whistle innocently anytime we pass by some guards?” Anders suggested.

Loriel said, “I know a spell…”

“Don’t you dare!” Yvanne said. “You’re already—” But before she could finish Loriel was murmuring an incantation. The bodies disintegrated within seconds, leaving bleached skeletons lost in their armor. Then even the bones turned to dust. Rust ate the armor, and that too collapsed into a reddish dust. An unnatural indoor wind blew, and even the dust scattered. No evidence that anyone had ever lived and died in this room remained. Loriel hadn’t become the best student of entropy magic in a hundred years for nothing.

Anders looked like he might be sick. “Alright,” he said. “_ Now _let’s get out of here.”

They hobbled out into the cool night air.

Loriel didn’t make it far. She had to call a halt halfway out the city, for which Yvanne seemed grateful.

“So that was a wash,” said Anders.

Yvanne didn’t reply. Loriel was pressed against her chest.

“Got rid of Rylock,” Loriel managed. Not quite a complete sentence yet, but getting closer.

“Hah. That’s definitely true.” Anders was looking at her, his expression carefully guarded. He chuckled. “Well, how about that. Little Loriel Surana, a blood mage? Now I’ve seen everything.”

“Oh, you haven’t seen the half of it,” Yvanne said with artificial lightness. “You should hear about the old hermit we met in the Brecilian forest. Poet-trees weren’t the half of that place. Ask Oghren, he’ll tell you.”

They chuckled, but weakly, and not for long.

“I’ll, uhm, check the perimeter, in case anyone…just in case. Yeah.” Anders gestured vaguely behind him with his thumb. “Rest up, Commander. I’ll be right back.”

She wanted to speak up and tell him not to go alone, that it could be dangerous, but somehow he seemed to move very fast. Or maybe she was being very slow. She let him go and let her eyes slide closed for a little while, listening to the steady beat of Yvanne’s heart.

“Yvanne, listen…”

“Yeah?” She brushed a sweaty piece of hair away from her forehead.

Loriel swallowed. “It…it was irresponsible of me to refuse to teach you blood magic. What happened at the warehouse—it can’t ever happen again. You should be able to defend yourself against a Templar, even if it means....oh, Maker, I feel so stupid. If you still want to learn, I’ll teach you, right away.”

“You aren’t stupid,” Yvanne said. “We’ll talk about this back at the Keep.”

Anders came back not long after that, suggesting they get out of the city. Loriel staggered up, leaning heavily on Yvanne, but managed to keep her footing. Anders gave her a reassuring grin and a thumbs-up.

It was then that Loriel managed to place that strange expression Anders had been wearing as he’d looked at her in the warehouse. It had been fear. Naked fear.

—

Loriel wrote to the Circle with a request. They responded. Loriel wrote to them again, and to Weisshaupt, and to Denerim, with ever more official-looking seals and signatures at the bottom of the parchment. They responded again. Loriel wrote back a third time, suggesting that she would pay a personal visit back to Kinloch—purely for personal reasons, of course, to see how the rebuilding was going, see some old friendly faces. And also to see if perhaps anybody else would like to be recruited into the Grey Wardens there, as she was after all the Warden-Commander, and retained the Rite of Conscription, and surely there would be _ many _willing recruits among Kinloch’s survivors…

They sent her the phylacteries. Loriel agreeably cancelled her planned visit.

They came in a mahogany box, secured to the fabric padding with twine, lest they break. They were delivered by a Templar that Loriel didn’t recognize, who must have been new. She smiled pleasantly as he completed his delivery. He did not smile back, and forgot to salute her before departing.

She took the mahogany box to her office. Yvanne was already waiting. Anders turned up shortly after. Loriel locked the door, and barred it, and spelled it shut. Then she opened the box, and there they were. Three little glass vials, belonging to the mages of the Grey Wardens of Ferelden, neatly labelled for the Commander’s convenience. Loriel took hers out, watching her own blood slosh around inside the crystal. Strange to see it still red and living, nearly fifteen years after they had taken it from her.

Then she handed Yvanne hers, and Anders his. She wondered if maybe she should have made a bigger deal of it. Lit some candles. Arranged for some chanting. 

But no. It was just three mostly-grown mages, alone in a quiet room, bizarrely afraid to do something they’d dreamed of doing for years.

“On three, then?” Yvanne finally suggested.

“On three,” Loriel agreed.

They counted together. One. Two. Three.

All three phylacteries smashed on the stone floor. There was hardly any blood at all, between the three of them. I’ll have to clean this up, Loriel thought. The glass was easy, but blood would stain the old stones. But then, she was a blood mage now, wasn’t she? It ought to be easy for her.

Maybe she’d just cover the stain with a new rug.

“That’s that, then,” Anders said with relief. “It’s really over.”

“Yep,” said Yvanne, popping the ‘p.’

“Makes me feel rather silly about the whole bit with the warehouse, really.”

“Don’t,” said Loriel. “The important thing is it’s over.”

They kept staring at the bloodstain. Loriel reached out to take Yvanne’s hand. She grasped back fiercely, and her other hand came up to squeeze Anders’ shoulder. They stayed like that for a while.

Then Anders shook Yvanne off. “Well,” he said, “I’m off towards the rest of my life, I suppose. I’ll see you two at dinner.” 

And it was just the two of them. 

Yvanne drew Loriel close, but it was not as lovers drew each other close. She drew her close as a child draws her friend close in the dark, when one of them has awoken from a nightmare and is not yet quite convinced it was only a dream.

“That’s it, then,” Yvanne said into her hair. 

“That’s it,” Loriel murmured against her collarbone.

They stood like that for a long time, until Yvanne whispered, “What are we going to do now?”

“We’re going to live our lives,” said Loriel, and the future opened wide, yawning and expansive, sure to swallow her whole.

The bloodstain never did come out of the flagstones. 


	4. Chapter 4

Yvanne got around to replacing the curtains. 

And the ugly old sheets on the bed, and the precariously dangling chandelier. Then she decided that the tapestries were hideous, too, and too thin for the winter besides, and began the process of sorting those out. Fire runes would do better. The tapestries were sold off in short order, as was the crystal from the remaining chandeliers, and much of the moldering upholstery.

She made Nathaniel Howe help her do it. He complained the whole time, but she suspected he was glad to have the place thoroughly cleaned out. He also conveniently knew about a whole host of secret rooms and passageways with extra junk in them just waiting to be cleared. Sometimes they found something interesting enough to keep—an Avvar toy soldier, a heavy glass ball, an ivory halla. These Yvanne put in her and Loriel’s quarters. To make the room feel a little more like home.

She replaced the fortress walls, too. The coffers hardly lacked for funds. She set Voldrik to it, and then she didn’t leave him alone until the job was done. She was a mage of no mean power. She could help. After weeks of tromping around the woods looking for a granite deposit of sufficient size, she set him to it again. It was an opportunity to get good at earth magic, at least. 

Walls she’d built herself, she decided, would be alright. Walls like that would keep things out, not keep her in. 

Now that her phylactery was broken, she had, by inches, begun to relax. All this time she’d been waiting for the other shoe to drop. And then it had, and they were still here. Nothing was irreparable. She and Loriel were still together, and they had a home, and if anybody came for them, they wouldn't be helpless.

Sometimes she couldn’t help but remember all the things that horrible old woman had said_ —changed very little—selfish, impulsive— _but what the hell did she know? She’d been wrong. Here Yvanne was, taking responsibility for the Keep, being a good little Warden. Why not? Working on the Keep felt like taking control. 

And anyway. Anyone that came to speak to the Warden-Commander about matters of basic maintenance, supply, and logistics would get, at best, a smile-and-nod, and more likely, a deflection and swift escape. Yvanne quickly developed the habit of heading these requests off before Loriel even became aware they existed.

On one occasion, early in the fall, Loriel came out of the inner Keep, sipping tea and blinking in the sudden sunlight, and beheld the granite walls being raised. A small army of builders swarmed the courtyard. “Did I order this done?” she said to Yvanne.

“Oh, yes,” said Yvanne. “With great foresight and wisdom.”

“Oh,” said Loriel. “How good of me.” She looked around, blinking almost owlishly as steam rose from the ceramic mug. “You’ve been busy.”

“I suppose I have.” She crossed her arms, watching as the walls were slowly built up. “But so have you, and one of us needs to run this place. What are you smiling for?”

Loriel’s smile broadened. “I’m happy for you, that’s all.”

“Me, too,” said Yvanne, and was faintly surprised to find that it was very nearly true.

—

Yvanne started insisting on group dinners, on the basis of “It’s not like any of you have anything better to do, do you?” And that was true enough; one didn’t join the Wardens out of an excess of pressing business or close personal relationships to attend to.

So they made a habit of group dinner. The Vigil’s Keep wardens were still a tiny cohort, and barely filled a table. There were easier, friendlier companies, and no one could rightly call this group anything like a family—save for that they did, after all, share blood. 

“So,” said Anders. “Is it true about the poet-tree? I mean, that can’t possibly be real. Can it? She had to have been joking.”

“Nope,” said Oghren. “It was real, alright. Pretty freaky, if you ask me.”

“Sounds better than the kind that attack on sight,” Nathaniel said.

“When are you going to get over that?” Velanna said. Yvanne was consistently surprised when she agreed to turn up to these dinners, but she kept doing it. “We have all agreed that it was a misunderstanding. No need to keep harping.”

“I wasn’t harping,” Nathaniel said, sounding wounded. “I was making a joke.”

“You know, Nate,” said Sigrun, “It’s easier to make jokes if you stop making such a sour expression all the time.”

“I am not making a sour expression,” Nathaniel said, sourly.

“Oh. So your face is just like that all the time, then?”

“I don’t think that’s very funny,” Velanna said. “My clan mates used to say I had a permanently grouchy face, too.”

The laughter was immediate and uproarious. Velanna colored, then got up and began to leave in disgust.

“Aw, no need to go—” Yvanne started, before Velanna shot her with a look so absolutely chilled that the words died in her throat. She let her go. By the time she was out of the hall, Oghren was telling a joke, and Loriel was complaining that he _ always _told that joke, and Anders loudly claimed to desperately want to hear zero of Oghren’s jokes, and Sigrun just wanted to hear the joke.

“So! Mage, huh?” said Oghren, a little while later. “What’s it like?”

“You traveled with four of us for over a year,” Loriel pointed out. "I didn't realize you wanted to know."

“You mean what it’s like to have all this power at my fingertips?” said Anders, wiggling his fingertips, before either Yvanne or Loriel could point out to Oghren that he'd traveled with four of them for months already.

“No. To always have to wear a skirt?” Oghren bellowed laughter, banging on the table.

An increasingly horrible grin spread across Anders’ features. “Oh, you don’t know the story behind the robes? Well, I’ll tell you.” He leaned back in his chair. “You know how strict things are in the Circle, right? Of course you do. Well, the robes make quick trysts in the corner easy. No laces or buttons. You’re done before the Templars catch on.”

Oghren looked thoughtful. Even enthralled. “Really?”

Andes waggled his eyebrows. “Just ask anyone. Right, Yvanne?”

Yvanne crossed her arms, face totally straight. “I’m not going to confirm or deny a thing.”

“Commander, you look rather flushed,” said Nathaniel. “Are you quite alright?”

At this point Loriel murmured something about suddenly remembering that she had something very important to do and politely excused herself, fingers brushing lightly across Yvanne’s shoulders. _ Coming? _ her raised eyebrow questioned. _ Soon, _meant Yvanne’s answering nod.

Loriel rarely stayed long at these dinners, especially after Oghren started drinking more heavily, which was his habit after a meal. He was often successful in convincing at least a handful of others to join him. Usually Anders. Often Yvanne. Loriel rarely drank, claimed to dislike the sense of losing control, which was fair enough. Usually it only took her about half a tankard before she started rattling off every stray thought that floated across her mind, and only about another half before she fell asleep in her chair.

That night at least three great sources of curiosity were sated—whether spirits could be persuaded to drink (they could), whether they could get drunk (they couldn’t), and exactly how much of an ass would Nathaniel Howe make of himself if challenged to a drinking contest (somehow, not at all). It ended with Oghren asleep on the table, which wasn’t unusual, and Nathaniel Howe right there with him, which was. Yvanne and Anders briefly debated moving them, and opted out on the basis that they were probably too drunk to manage it without seriously hurting one or both of them.

They left the hall arms over shoulders, singing an off-key drinking song with most of the words mangled, and they made it halfway through the song before giving up on it. Somehow they ended up on a balcony, letting the night air sober them slightly. Yvanne watched the stars spin above her—she was pretty sure they shouldn’t have been spinning, but that was neither here nor there—and found herself thinking, yes, this is what I wanted. 

But there was something that had been bothering her for most of the past month, and just now she’d drunk enough that she had the courage to bring it up.

“Hey. Anders?” 

He turned languidly to her, blinking heavily. The lightweight, he’d barely had anything at all. “Mhmmmm?”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but—”

“Oh, I _ love _when sentences start that way.”

Yvanne rolled her eyes. “_ But _—I was wondering—why are you still here?”

He gave her a puzzled look. “What d’you mean, why am I still here? I’m a Warden, aren’t I?”

She snorted. “And that’s a job you asked for, did you?”

“Desertion’s a crime, last I checked.”

“Like we'd chase you down if you left. Loriel's half-hoping that everybody just goes on and deserts and she can stop being in charge. You're really breaking her heart, you know."

He laughed, maybe a little nervously. "I'll bet I am."

Yvanne didn't join him. "You could always leave if you wanted. You don’t _ have _to be here.”

He grinned crookedly. “Trying to get rid of me, eh?”

“You know what I mean. You were here because you needed protection. Because the Wardens were better than the Circle.”

“Yes, and? What’s your point?”

“My point is, that’s not true anymore. It’s been weeks since we smashed our phylacteries, and you haven't gone. Why?”

He kept the easy smile, though it was growing less convincing. “Would you believe me if I said I genuinely have nowhere better to be?”

“No.”

He snorted. “Well, you’d better believe it, because it’s true.”

She hesitated, then risked it. “What about Karl?”

The smile fled from his face. He looked away. “What about him?”

“You were going to go and find him. Before.”

Slowly, laboriously, he shrugged. “Look, it’s...been a long time. I don’t even know if he’s even still at the Gallows. Or how I’d even find out if he was.”

She chewed her lip. “That’s a solvable problem, isn’t it? Loriel has all sorts of connections and the clout to use them. We could find out—”

“No. No, it’s...probably better that we don’t,” he said, still looking away. “It’s been a long time. Who even knows if he…” He faltered. “No, I don’t want to know.”

He didn’t even want to know. How could he not want to know? How could he just let him go like that? She wanted to shout at him for it. _If Loriel and I were separated, it wouldn’t matter how long it took_, she thought. _If something took me from her I’d claw my way back_. For a hot moment, she was actually angry about it. Wasn’t anything worth _ anything? _

But he looked so uncharacteristically sad that the anger quickly drained away. They’d been friends such a long time, and in some ways they were still half-strangers.

“I guess I’d try to convince you otherwise,” she said reluctantly, giving him and awkward, hesitant pat on the shoulder, “but I actually _ am _glad you’re here, so maybe I won’t try so hard.”

He shrugged again. “We don’t all get lucky like you did. But, hey, it’s alright. Being a Warden is pretty good, actually. It’s a life. A better life than a lot of people get.”

“Yeah,” Yvanne said vaguely. She thought about all the people still in Kinloch, who she hadn’t spared a thought for since she’d left it. She thought about Sigrun and the Legion of the Dead. She thought about...

“Honestly? I’m happy to take it.”

“Yeah. Me too."

He made an effort, and the smile sprang back. “Well, that was a cheerful talk. I’m going to bed. See you tomorrow.”

He went whistling on his way, and alone in the flickering torchlight, Yvanne suddenly felt the overwhelming urge to sob her heart out.

She retreated to the Commander’s chambers, where Loriel was still awake. Had she waited for her? That did it. Her vision blurred and she swept her into an embrace just a little too tight.

“Are you alright?” Loriel said, startled.

“Fine,” Yvanne managed. “Just thinking about how very lucky I am to live in a world with you in it.”

For all the worlds where that was not so—where they had _not _been so lucky—felt precipitously close, terrifyingly possible, and Yvanne did not care for the Maker, but she thanked him all the same.

—

“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong or are you going to wear a hole in the rug?”

“I’m not going to wear a hole in the rug. It’s new and I’m wearing soft shoes,” Yvanne said dismissively. Then, anxiously worrying at her fingers, she explained: "Velanna doesn’t like me.”

“Velanna doesn’t like anybody,” Loriel replied.

“I think she likes me even less than everybody else.” A pause, the scratching of the quill. “Even less than Oghren.”

Loriel looked up from the letter she was drafting. “You know,” she said, “I think this is the very first time, in all the years I have known you, that you have given any indication at all that you care about anybody liking or disliking you. In fact, I’ve been quite under the impression that you actively desire to be disliked by as many people as possible.”

Yvanne crossed her arms, sniffing contemptuously. “You’re right, I don’t care. And if I ever cared, I’ve stopped now, this very instant. I’ve decided.”

Loriel put down the pen. “Do you want me to talk to her?”

“No! Absolutely not. That would be so humiliating. Don’t you dare.”

“I’ll talk to her.”

Yvanne made a noise of disgust. “I really love you, you know.”

Loriel leaned across the desk to kiss her. “Don’t worry, it won’t work. I don’t think she likes me much either.”

“I just,” Yvanne sighed, “I just don’t want it to be like it was before.”

Loriel tilted her head. “What do you mean, before?”

“I mean, during the Blight.”

When Loriel didn’t seem any less puzzled, Yvanne said, “I realized the other day...I have no idea what Leliana’s last name is? I feel certain she told me it. But I don’t remember. What was it?”

“I...don’t know?” Loriel’s eyebrows scrunched together. “Why does it matter?”

“Just realizing I didn’t know an awful lot of things about the people who helped us save this country’s hide,” Yvanne said vaguely. “ I don’t know why Zevran had those tattoos or why Sten doesn’t have horns like other Qunari or how Alistair ended up a Templar in the first place. We traveled with them for almost a year and we didn’t really know them at all, did we?”

“That’s not true,” Loriel protested. “We didn’t know _ everything _about them, but we knew them.”

“Did we? Most of what I remember from that year is looking over my shoulder, wondering if you were paying attention to me.”

Loriel flushed faintly. “Yes, I...remember something very similar on my part.”

“Well, we don’t have to do that anymore, right?” Yvanne leaned over the desk, trying not to loom. “We’re together now, aren’t we? So maybe we can actually bother with the rest of the world this time around.”

For a reason that Loriel couldn’t explain, that struck something deep in the pit of her stomach, an artifact left in her body by a younger self. But Yvanne was right.

“I’ll talk to Velanna,” she promised again. 

—

Loriel had been leaving most of the work of the Commander to Yvanne for months now—Maker knew Yvanne needed something to focus on, and anyway Loriel had more interesting projects to concern herself with, like the Architect and the awakened darkspawn and this brewing civil war. But at the end of the day, Loriel had the title, which meant she had the responsibility. After all, she was the one who had gotten the Vigil’s Keep Wardens involved in all this. She was responsible for them, and if there was anything in the whole world that Loriel was good at, it was taking responsibility.

She couldn’t call herself _ close _with any of them, the way that Yvanne was desperately trying to be (she loved her for that, she did), but she knew how to deal with them. Nathaniel was an upstanding young nobleman wrapped in the thinnest shell of bitterness, and it had taken almost no effort at all to break through it. Oghren, she’d figured out back during the Blight, enough to know she couldn’t help him and would probably hurt herself if she tried. Sigrun maybe was different. But she would have to be careful. Loriel had never wanted to die, but she knew what it was to resign from one’s life, to give up one’s fate to the wind. Because it was easier, because it was what everyone wanted of you. 

But it was death, all the same.

Anders didn’t look at her the same way anymore, since the phylacteries. But she didn’t need him to. It wasn’t like they’d ever been close. So it was fine. It didn’t matter. Justice was an inhuman intelligence possessing the corpse of a murdered man, and perhaps it was troubling that she found him an easier presence to exist in than almost any other—but perhaps not. 

People were pretty easy to manage. A modicum of kindness, a listening ear. Paying enough attention to know what they might like as a gift. It wasn’t difficult. She’d been playing the Templars of Kinloch like lutes since she was a girl. People she liked much better than them, over who she had explicit power, were easier still.

But she couldn’t for the life of her figure out what to do with Velanna.

Velanna couldn’t seem to stand her, no matter what she did. She reminded Loriel of Morrigan—ugh, they even wore their hair the same way—except that Morrigan had disliked her in the same way she disliked an unsightly smudge on her nose. It hadn’t been personal, or at least, not very. And since the witch had saved her life, Loriel had trouble feeling much ire towards her. Besides, with Morrigan, she hadn’t been _ trying _.

She was _trying _with Velanna, and she’d never more incompetent in her life. She just couldn't get through to her. And she would have been perfectly fine with that. Velanna followed orders along with everybody else, and that was really all Loriel needed from her.

But she’d promised Yvanne.

Ugh.

She told herself that this would be good for the team. It would promote teamwork. It was better if everybody got along, and Loriel didn’t like being a tyrant. If she was going to be in charge of people, she wanted them to like her.

At least, the nice thing—one of many—about being Commander was that she got to pick who went on patrol with whom. She put herself on the roster with Velanna, though she normally didn’t do patrols. Maybe that made it too obvious. Velanna hadn’t said a word all night.

She sighed. She’d just have to try harder. 

“How are you finding the Wardens?” she said.

A snort, then silence.

“I see. I don’t suppose there’s anything I can do to make it better?”

Velanna’s jaw was tense. “I can tell what you’re doing, you know. Stop it.”

“I’m very sorry. I hadn’t realized. What is it exactly that I’m doing?”

“You’re manipulating me,” Velanna shot back. “Or trying to, anyway. Stop it at once.”

“I’m only trying to be kind.”

“I neither need nor want it.”

“Fine, then,” Loriel snapped, before she could rein herself in—and then simply decided not to bother. Nothing else had worked; why not directness? “What exactly is your problem?”

“I should hope that would have been obvious.”

“Enlighten me. _ Please. _”

Velanna briefly met her eyes, then fiercely looked away. “I’m here for my sister,” she said finally. “That’s it. There’s nothing else for me here.”

So that was it. Easy enough. “That doesn’t have to be true, you know,” said Loriel. “You have a place in the Wardens.”

“Don’t make me laugh!” Velanna said scornfully. “I may be a Warden, and I may be an exile, but my place is with my people.”

_ Oh, yes, the people who exiled you _ , Loriel thought. _ The people who wanted nothing to do with you as soon as you were no longer convenient for them. _ She remembered unbidden an early childhood memory, in the Highever alienage. The hahren had always talked about the importance of community, of standing by one another in the face of the shemlen boot. And that had been true enough, to a point, until seven-year-old Loriel Surana had started manifesting magic, and the Templars had come for her, and nobody had said a word, not so much as a single breath of defiance. Not even her parents. 

How odd. She hadn’t thought of it in years and years.

“I can understand that,” she said, though she couldn’t.

“Is that so? Then remind me exactly,” said Velanna, “how your shemlen woman managed to steal a magical technique known only to the ancient elvehn?”

It took a moment for Loriel to realize what she was talking about. “The arcane warrior technique? She didn’t _ steal _it. I found the memory deep in a Brecilian ruin, and she cared to learn it more than I did.” Then she added, more sharply, “And I’ll thank you not talk to about Yvanne like that.”

“So it was you?” Velanna’s eyes narrowed even further. “I should have known. How are you not ashamed?”

“I...that’s ridiculous. Why would I be ashamed?”

“If you had any respect at all for your history—for your people—you wouldn’t even have to ask! That magic is our history. It’s ours by right, preserved from the ravages of time by nothing short of a miracle—and you let a shemlen have it. That alone tells enough to know that we have very little in common.”

Loriel was briefly, honestly stunned. “You’re angry because...I’m not enough of an elf for you?”

“Angry? No.” She looked at her with something—it wasn’t anger. It was disdain. “Besides, how could I be angry at you for not being something you aren’t? You _ aren’t _an elf.”

“That isn’t fair,” Loriel said evenly. “Just because I’m not Dalish doesn’t mean I’m not an elf. I don’t have any choice about about being an elf.”

“You _ do _ have a choice, and you’ve made it.”

“That isn’t true.” 

“No? I can tell from the way you talk to those who see you as less than dirt. I’ve never heard speech so sweet! You think that if you beg and scrape and bend over backwards, you’ll get a seat at the table, too. Well, you’ve got it, haven’t you, _ Commander?” _

“You don’t know,” said Loriel, “a _ fucking _thing about me.”

The temperature in the area had dropped precipitously, unnaturally for the weather. Dark wisps swirled around her feet, writhing with grasping tendrils.

A brief flash of fear crossed Velanna’s face, but was just as soon replaced by sullen anger. _ Go ahead, _ her look said. _ I dare you. _

Loriel didn’t care for that expression. She cared for it even less than for Anders’ fear. 

With a gargantuan application of her not-insignificant willpower, she dismissed all the magic she’d inadvertently gathered. The darkness dissipated. The temperature went back up. She was in control of herself again.

“Nathaniel will finish my patrol,” she said flatly. “I’ve business to attend to.”

She seethed the entire way back to her chambers, composing the truly furious rant she’d treat Yvanne to at first opportunity, but she was already asleep (of course she was, it was the middle of the night), and she didn’t want to wake her. And by morning light, she was no longer quite so angry—disappointed, cold, and somewhat flat, but not angry, and it no longer felt worth discussing.

Velanna still followed orders, and really, that was what was important. She didn’t _ need _to be her friend. After all, it wasn’t like they were staying here for long.

—

Loriel had clearly had something on her mind lately—she always had things on her mind, things Yvanne could scarcely fathom—but Yvanne was not one to push. She'd tell her when she was ready, she figured. And finally, she did. 

“So…have you given it any more thought?” Loriel asked.

Yvanne paused in the middle of arranging a variety of stone figurines on a decorative shelf. She blanked. “Given what any more thought?” 

Loriel had her chin slightly raised, like she was holding in a breath. Finally she said, “About what I said. In Amaranthine.”

Yvanne rewound, trying to remember everything Loriel had said to her in Amaranthine. Then she realized. “About blood ma—”

“Yes,” Loriel said quickly. “About that.” She paused. “We never did talk about it. When we got back to the Keep.” Mostly because Loriel had fallen asleep on the journey back and hadn’t woken until well past noon the next day. And after that every time it came up, she looked ashamed and changed the subject. Yvanne hadn't pressed, then, either. “And you said that we would.”

She looked down at her hands, fidgeting. “So. I am just letting you know. I wasn’t just saying that because I was delirious. I really did mean it. I want…I want you to be able to protect yourself, in case anything like…”

“I can protect myself,” Yvanne said, changing her mind for a third time about the figurine arrangement and starting over again. But they both knew it wasn’t true. Yvanne wasn’t even much of a swordsman. Back during the Blight she’d actively despised all their party members who might have taught her swordplay, save for Leliana. And Leliana’s style was all about finesse and grace, and Yvanne’s was more about…wailing relentlessly on the enemy until they fell down. Oghren was probably a better fit in terms of style, but was so woefully inadequate at teaching that she hadn’t even bothered to ask. 

But all of that was beside the point. None of her magically enhanced martial skills mattered against a Templar, because one holy smite would take all that away. Against the only enemy that might matter, any mage but a blood mage was helpless.

No wonder the Chantry feared the practice so much.

“I know you were angry before,” Loriel said. “Back in Redcliffe. After Jowan. I’ve thought a lot about it, and I realized you were right.”

Yvanne shook her head. “I wasn’t angry about that,” she said, but thinking back, she couldn’t remember _ what _she’d been angry about. She remembered being furious, about half a dozen different things, until it all blended together into a senseless, pulsating knot of poison. How had she ever lived like that?

Loriel saw her hesitating. “Of course, you don’t _ have _to,” she said anxiously. “It isn’t pleasant, you know, it doesn’t feel the way regular magic does, it feels...quite horrible, actually, so if you didn’t want to anymore I’d understand, but—”

“No, I want to,” Yvanne said, and suddenly realized she wasn’t sure if it was true. When she was younger, she had. She’d wanted it so badly, just because it was the most transgressive thing to do she could think of, short of becoming an abomination outright. Maker, how many times had she fantasized about doing the exact thing Jowan had ended up actually doing? She still couldn’t believe she’d been beaten to the punch by him, of all people.

But she wasn’t a teenage girl locked in a tower anymore. She was something else now, and she wasn’t sure what exactly that was.

She looked back at Loriel. She was right, was the thing. Yvanne needed to be able to protect herself. “Teach me,” she said.

Loriel didn’t look happy about it, but she did seem relieved. “Okay,” she said. “Whenever you have the time, I suppose we can…”

“Right,” said Yvanne, nodding to the figurines. “Because I’m so busy right now.”

Loriel straightened in alarm. “You want to do it right now?”

Yvanne turned fully around and stepped closer to her, until Loriel had to bend her neck up to look her in the eye.

“You know I hate when you loom,” Loriel muttered up at her.

“You do not. You think it’s very sexy,” Yvanne said. “Can’t believe you still get so flustered about that when—mmph.”

Eventually Loriel released her, and lead her by the hand to the bed. Which she had done enough times before. But never before for this purpose.

Loriel bit her lip. “Alright,” she said, “I’m not sure how best to explain it. I learned it when a demon magically put the knowledge in my head..”

“Quit introducing the topic and tell me how to do it,” Yvanne said impatiently, and if there was an edge of nervousness to her voice, Loriel knew it was kinder to ignore it.

“Right. Right. Well…when you reach for magic, most of the time, you reach outward, right? To the Fade. It’s a part of you, but also…beyond you.” Thoughtlessly, as though to demonstrate, she summoned a little blue flame.

“With blood magic, it’s almost the same. You reach inside…but not beyond. You reach for the power that wells from your _ own _soul. That’s why its so tiring. And so powerful.” The little blue flame burned white-hot, and Loriel grew paler.

“That’s it?” Yvanne said, puzzled. “Really?”

“Not quite. It has to hurt, too.”

“What? Why?”

“I don’t know. It just does. It’s not only about the blood—it’s about the sacrifice.”

“I guess I can’t just rely on my monthlies, then,” Yvanne said sarcastically.

“No. Or, well, you could, but you wouldn’t get much out of it. You’re not really _ sacrificing _anything then. You have to have all three—the blood, the pain, and the sacrifice.”

“I don’t understand. Why pain?”

Loriel shrug. “I don’t know. I haven’t...I haven’t _ experimented _with it. I just remember what the demon told me. As far as I can tell, the blood makes a path of flow, but the pain lets you access it. That’s the rule. You can’t get something for nothing. Which, I guess, is why so many blood mages sacrifice other people, instead of themselves. There’s only so much of yourself you can give up before you can’t stand it anymore.”

“Right,” Yvanne muttered. “I see why you didn’t want to teach it me.”

Loriel dismissed the flame, breathing out. “That’s more or less it. It’s not too difficult to pick up, actually.”

“Let me try, then.” 

Loriel hesitated, then reached to the bedside table and took a small silver knife from the drawer. “Here,” she said. “Do you want me to, or—?”

“I want you to,” Yvanne said, and produced her wrist.

“Alright. We’ll start small.” She took her offered hand and lifted it to her lips, kissed each finger and the palm, pressed it to her cheek. Then she took the knife to her skin. Yvanne thought she would hesitate, but she didn’t. One quick movement, a sensation almost unlike pain, and Yvanne was bleeding.

“Can you feel the power?”

“I think so.” Her blood was flowing, though sluggishly, staining the covers. Loriel’s hand was still in hers, holding tight even as the blood made the union slick. 

“Try a simple spell,” Loriel encouraged.

Yvanne tried a basic spell of creation—it was hard not to heal the cut by instinct—and found it wasn’t working, like swimming against a strong current. She frowned, reached for a more powerful spell of healing—and found the block even more stubborn.

Of course. She knew _ spirit _ healing. None of those techniques would work without a spirit; she could still heal, but it would come at the cost of her own vitality. And she certainly wouldn’t be able to heal _ herself_ with blood magic, or at least, there wouldn’t be any point to it_. _

Frustrated, she went simpler still, and managed a low weak flame held in the palm of her hand.

It felt like sludge. Like too hot and too cold at once. Yvanne had never thought of her magic as something that felt good, exactly, but it felt normal. Like moving an arm or a leg. Like going to the well to draw water. Blood magic felt like—exactly what it was. Cutting herself open and using her own insides for fuel. 

“Ugh,” she said, letting the flame gutter out. Even that basic spell, one she’d known since she was a girl, had drained her in a way she’d never truly felt before. “That felt _ awful._ How do you stand it?"

Loriel smiled apologetically. “I know. I’d never have brought it up if I hadn't thought it was important.”

“I suppose you did warn me.”

“Look, we can stop for now if you want.”

“No, it’s fine. You’re right, it’s important. Let me try…”

Yvanne tried a spell that came most naturally to her. A simple electric shock.

Unfortunately, they were holding hands.

Loriel yelped, jerked away, and fell off the bed.

“Maker!” Yvanne scrambled to the side of the bed, dripping blood everywhere. “Sorry…”

“That was the third time this month,” Loriel complained.

“Oh, poor baby. Want me to kiss it?”

“You’d _ better _ kiss it_._”

That as good as ended the matter of blood magic for that day, after which Loriel didn’t bring it up again, and Yvanne never asked her to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is perhaps prudent to mention at this time that I am writing this story in a nonstandard way (for myself)--I'm writing a chapter, letting it sit a bit, and then posting it, rather than just writing the whole thing in one go, editing it as a cohesive whole, and then posting it on a weekly schedule. I'm not too adept at genuinely serial writing but I figure there's no other way this thing is going to get written and I can't focus on any other project until it does.
> 
> That is to say, comments would be appreciated even more than usual. Thanks for reading!


	5. Chapter 5

They’d had the run of Vigil’s Keep for months and months now, and the business with the darkspawn seemed no clearer than before. Luckily, Yvanne did not lack for projects.

She finished renovating the walls. She brought the blacksmith all the strange things that he asked for, because it seemed to make him happy, and she took it as a point of pride to keep everyone in her Keep happy. She had everyone outfitted in silverite, then bullied Nathaniel into helping her set up advanced training sessions for the ordinary soldiers. It had started with wanting him to teach just her, and slowly but surely expanded. Now she did more supervising than learning, but she was probably never going to be much of a swordsman. She rarely used her arcane warrior training these days.

She ended up getting to know practically everyone that lived at the Vigil fairly well, their families, their troubles. It wasn’t anything compared to the excruciating detail she’d known the other mages in the tower—who, after all, she’d been stuck with for nearly her entire life—but that was actually better. These were people she was getting to know on purpose, because she wanted to. It felt like being a part of something.

But Velanna _ still _didn’t like her, and it was only so long before Yvanne snapped. It had started with a single snide comment in passing in the courtyard. Yvanne had snapped right back: "Just what in the void _is _your problem with me, anyway?"

It had escalated. Yvanne had never been a particularly smooth-edged, and Velanna was probably one of the only people around who was even less even-tempered than she was. They went from sharp words to shouting to outright insults, and the whole thing had escalated to a full-blown (if brief) magical duel in the courtyard. Only after _ that _did Yvanne figure it out, piecing together some of the shouted comments she’d received.

“Is that it? The bloody arcane warrior technique?” she demanded, still trying to free her numbing leg from the vine which had it in a death grip. “Maker's Breath! I can just teach it to you, you know!”

Velanna tried hard to keep a serious, furious expression on while subtly extinguishing the small flame at the tip of her hair. She was not, entirely, successful. Finally she said, “I….suppose...that would be acceptable.”

After that, it wasn’t exactly that they were _ friends, _but they weren’t not-friends, either. There was something about a pitched magical duel held in the public eye over a stupid argument which brought people together in a way that couldn’t be fully encapsulated in a typical friendship.

—

On the way back from another Deep Roads excursion, they found themselves having to stop earlier than expected. Loriel had underestimated the amount of time they’d be spending down there, and by the time they got out it was nearly dark, not enough daylight to make it back to the Keep. Loriel was already lamenting the terrible fate of having to camp another night before getting back to their wonderful bed—the year was creeping into winter, and the thought of sleeping on the ground did not appeal—when Yvanne suggested staying at a nearby farmhouse instead.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Loriel fretted. “We don’t know those people. I’d hate to impose. We shouldn’t go around inviting ourselves into people’s houses just because we’re Wardens.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Yvanne said smugly. “I _ do _know them. We can sleep in the hayloft, it’ll be more comfortable than the ground this time of year.” And she stomped off towards the farmhouse.

The farmer and his wife and their daughter greeted Yvanne like an old friend, clasped her hands, smiled carefully at Loriel in turn. They served them dinner and ale and afterwards refused to let such esteemed guests sleep in the hayloft, or even the floor. No matter how much Loriel protested, the farmer insisted that they take the bed for the night.

Loriel was at a loss. “I don’t understand,” she said lowly, when it was time to sleep. “How do you know these people?”

“Hm? Oh. This is the farmer whose daughter I rescued from bandits. I guess he’s still pretty grateful.”

"Oh. I see." She tried not to let any accusation bleed into her tone, and she wasn’t sure if she entirely succeeded. “Why didn’t you tell me about it?”

“I did tell you,” Yvanne said, puzzled. “Last month, the day it happened.”

Loriel racked her brain for the memory.

“It was in the bath,” Yvanne prompted. “You were washing my hair.”

That did it. “Oh! Yes, now I remember. This is _ that _farmer.” She was exaggerating. She remembered the day, the conversation, the broad strokes of the story, but none of the details. Her mind had been on something else completely; she no longer remembered what. She had the feeling that, at the time, she had listened attentively; she remembered commenting, asking questions, prompting her to continue. She remembered being verbally sorry that she hadn’t been there. But somehow none of it had stuck, as though she hadn’t counted on it ever coming up again.

“You sound so surprised,” Yvanne said, amused. “Come on, we did this kind of stuff all the time during the Blight. Well, mostly you did. As I recall I mostly stood around with Morrigan complaining about what a waste of time it was.”

“You always helped in the end,” Loriel pointed out.

“Of course I helped, I’m not a monster. But you helped a lot of people back then, is what I’m saying. I’m just barely starting to catch up.”

“Well, sure, but…” But back then she’d never really expected to talk to any of those people again. If someone needed help, she’d help them, because it was what you were supposed to do. She was the Grey Warden. You had to help people if you were the Grey Warden. What was the point of all her training in the Circle and all the shining silver scales on her uniform if she wasn’t helping people? But they’d all been abstractions, hardly people at all in her mind. She couldn’t remember a single one of their names or faces; they all blurred together into one big brownish parade of problems.

She would never have thought that she’d run into any of them again, that they might still be grateful. 

And she couldn’t help but feel that if she wouldn’t have gotten nearly the same reaction if it had been her who’d saved the farmer’s daughter.

Yvanne was already snoring— she _ did _snore, whatever she claimed—so Loriel had no one but herself with whom to mull these thoughts over with.

It made perfect sense to Loriel that people loved Yvanne. Who wouldn’t love Yvanne? Yvanne was wonderful. Yvanne was vibrant and beautiful and much better than she thought herself to be. And in many ways, she was everything that Loriel was not. Perhaps it came of the way that they’d grown up, circling each other like skittish dogs. They’d grown into the space left vacant by the other, using the other’s strengths in place of her own. It made them a wonderful team. It was probably the only reason they’d made it through the Blight alive.

Sometimes Loriel wondered what she would have been like if she hadn’t grown up relying on Yvanne for so much. Would she have been stronger? Would she have been able to make people love her, the way Yvanne so effortlessly could? Had Loriel simply never bothered to learn how, because all her life Yvanne had been there, bathing her in sunlight and in warmth, letting her be loved by proxy? Or would she have been just the same as she was now—awkward, reticent, a little afraid of people—only without anyone at her side to make it easier for her?

The next morning they thanked the farmer and his family and started towards the Keep. The fields were strangely empty for the time of year. 

“Why don’t you tell me the story about the bandit and the farmer’s daughter again?” Loriel prompted. “I’m afraid I’ve forgotten some of the details. I remember it was a wonderful story.”

Yvanne laughed. “You can’t fool me, you’re just saying that so you won’t have to talk for the next half-hour. But it is a pretty good story, so you’re in luck.”

Loriel settled into the pleasant sound of her Yvanne's voice and the animatedness of her expression as she talked, and she’d almost entirely forgotten her strange unpleasant feelings from the morning and the night before by the time they neared the Keep.

But as they approached the courtyard, she realized that something was very wrong.

People crowded the courtyard, peasants, mostly, it looked like. Shouting. She spotted Varel and Garahel at the entrance to the Keep. Someone threw a rock; it missed. The men had their hands on their swords, and at that provocation one of them drew his. One more like that and it would come to violence. Loriel knew what jumpy men carrying swords were liable to do.

“Excuse me,” Loriel said, but nobody heard her. “Excuse me!”

“_ HEY!” _shouted Yvanne, so loudly it must have been magic amplifying her voice.

That got their attention. A few heads turned, some people shaking the shoulders of those standing next to them. The wave spread until the mean axis of shouting was pointed straight at her.

She couldn’t even make out everything that was being said. Someone’s son was starving. The darkspawn were everywhere. They wouldn’t be taking this tyranny anymore. 

She sighed.

Loriel took Yvanne’s hand and cast a force shield around both of them, a modified version which could accommodate two people and move with them as they walked. The shouting ceased at once; the shield was impermeable to sound.

It wasn’t as though they could hurt her. But she needed to get them inside the Keep. Varel would deal with this.

“Come on, let’s go,” she said. 

Yvanne looked doubtfully around at the peasants. But she squeezed her hand, and went with her.

The peasants tried to block her path, but the force shield was implacable. They moved out of the way or they were moved. Whatever they said, she didn’t hear it.

But she could see them, alright. She could see the way they looked at her. At first just anger, but when she’d used magic, it mixed with fear and disgust. 

When they made it to the steps, Garahel’s men stepped aside to let her through, which was just as well. The force shield was nearly out of energy, and she was too nerve-wracked to cast it again.

“Thank the Maker you arrived,” said Garahel. “Things are getting out of hand.”

“Are they now!” said Yvanne. “What possibly gave you that idea? What is _ happening?” _

“Grave times,” said the Seneschal. “The common folk are getting desperate. Although, I have my suspicions…”

Yvanne nodded grimly. “You mean the conspiracy.”

“Conspiracy!” Loriel said, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “Not this again.”

“Yes, this again! I keep _ telling _you—”

“It doesn’t matter whether it has to do with any conspiracy or not,” Loriel snapped. “They’re clearly unhappy. What are we to do about it?”

“Maybe you can say a few words?” said Varel. “Calm them down. Make them see reason.”

It took Loriel a moment to realize he was talking to her. “No,” she said. “No, I don’t think I can do that.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Yvanne. “You’re the Arlessa, the Commander, the _ Hero of Ferelden. _If anyone can calm them down—”

_ —it’s you, _ Loriel thought. _ It’s you that could fix this. Or Varel, maybe. Not me. _

“You don’t coddle a revolt, you put it down,” said Garahel. “Just give me the order.”

Her eyes widened. “No! No, that’s not a good idea.” Is that what would have happened if she’d managed to leave the situation before she could be asked to fix it? How many other tragedies had she allowed simply by not paying enough attention to them? “I don’t want anything like that.”

The greatest part of her wanted to hide in the Keep, and let Yvanne handle it, like she’d been letting Yvanne handle so many things. But no. She was the Commander. If there was anything she was good at, it was taking responsibility. Right now she had a responsibility to these people, to get them out of here without anyone getting hurt. She faced them.

“Good people,” she began. “Good people! Now, more than ever, we must stand together—”

“We’ll not be swayed by your honeyed words!” And the accusations started up again, how the soldiers didn’t protect them, and the granaries were empty, and this and that, and what did they expect her to do about it? Conjure more soldiers out of thin air, more grain? 

Maybe she could just give them what they wanted, whatever it was. Make any promise that was necessary. Just so they’d _ go away. _

But the more she thought about that, the less she liked the sound of it. She was the Warden-Commander. The Arlessa. The Hero of Ferelden. Yvanne had been right about all that. She’d done all these things for them. She’d been doing all these things for everybody, as long as she’d been alive. And somehow it still didn’t seem to matter.

This wasn’t working. She’d have to change tacks.

“If you all know what’s best for you,” she said, “you will disperse and return to your homes in an orderly fashion.”

More raised voices, accusations. She didn’t bother to listen too closely. 

She counted out the seconds, then she said, “I was taught things you couldn’t even imagine.” She made her voice colder, more dispassionate. _ I’m a terrifying blood mage, _ she thought. _ I’m willing to do all sorts of things. _“I’ve slain an archdemon. Darkspawn by the score. What do you suppose I’ll do to you?”

It shouldn’t have worked, it really shouldn’t have. She was hardly an inch over five feet tall, narrow-shouldered, unarmed and barely armored. She had a quiet voice and a moon face. 

Maybe that’s what made it worse.

“You’re bluffing.” It was the same man who’d said he wouldn’t be swayed by her honeyed words. Well, how about now? She could hear the tremor in his voice.

She said nothing. Let them think what they will.

The same man, faltering: “W-wait!”

Another voice, a woman’s, panicked: “I’m getting out of here.”

That broke it. The energy drained out of the riot, and it dissipated. She’d never seen a crowd clear out so fast.

Of course she wouldn’t have really done anything to them. She wasn’t _ really _ a terrifying blood mage—even if she knew blood magic, technically. But they’d already formed their opinion of her, that was clear. What difference did it make if she just let them keep thinking their vile thoughts? Let it work against them for once. Let _ her _have the power for once.

Yvanne probably could have talked them down, she thought, removed. But it was Loriel who was Commander.

When they had dispersed she turned around and went back into her Keep.

“I was too hard on them, wasn’t I?” she fretted later to Yvanne.

“Oh, love, no…”

“I really am an evil bl—an evil mage, aren’t I?”

“You aren’t any such thing.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do. I’m very clever.”

“You are that…But, still—”

“No such buts! You did nothing wrong,” Yvanne said firmly. “You didn’t _ do _anything. You resolved this without anyone getting hurt at all. Isn’t that an accomplishment?”

“I suppose…”

“That’s right. Now hush.”

“Alright, alright…”

She fell asleep in Yvanne's arms, not entirely convinced, but not entirely needing to be.

—

Loriel had been up late; that was the trouble. She’d had an idea for a new spell, a tracking spell that might help her figure out where the Architect had hidden himself. She had gotten caught up in working it out, so when she woke the next morning it was already nearly afternoon, and she didn’t feel rested at all. Yvanne was gone already—not a surprise, she always had a million things to do around the Keep these days, and she was getting up earlier and earlier—so she spent a while simply puttering about the room, trying to pick up the thread she’d lost the night before, but it was no good.

There was a knock on the door. “Yes?”

“Commander, ser. Bann Esmerelle is here to speak with you.”

“Bann Esmerelle? I’ll be right there.” Oh, hell. Was she supposed to be meeting with Bann Esmerelle today? She must have forgotten. She was always forgetting things these days, meetings with important people, letters she was supposed to send.

She ran right into Yvanne

“Loriel, there are you are—finally got up, I see—I was wondering if—”

“Sorry, can’t talk now, love,” said Loriel. “I’ve a meeting with Bann Esmerelle.”

“No you don’t,” said Yvanne, frowning. “I’d know about it if you did. She didn’t schedule anything for today.”

“Maybe you just forgot,” Loriel said distractedly. “You’ve enough going on as it is, I can handle keeping track of my own meetings.”

“I wouldn’t have forgotten! More likely she felt entitled to just showing up unannounced, the entitled cu—”

“Oh, hush, it’s fine.”

Yvanne followed her into the Great Hall, muttering a variety of rude things about Bann Esmerelle, and Loriel had to admit it made her feel a little better about forgetting about a meeting with her. She passed by a suit of armor with a recently-polished mirror, checked that she didn’t look any more embarrassing than usual, and went inside.

“Bann Esmerelle,” she said, as pleasantly as possible. The Seneschal was in attendance, and she nodded to him politely. It wasn’t even just Bann Esmerelle. It was a whole retinue of lords and ladies. “Please forgive my rudeness. I have been caught up in events and no longer remember what it is you wished to discuss. Please do me the favor of reminding me—what seems to be the trouble?”

“What seems to be the trouble,” Bann Esmerelle repeated. “A fine question indeed, Arlessa. What _ does _seem to be the trouble? I have an answer to that.”

It was then that Loriel realized that Bann Esmerelle was wearing armor under her finery. She hadn’t tried very hard to hide it, the awkward way the fabric lay over her figure, the bulkiness of it. Ferelden fashion wasn’t known for its grace, but even so…

Now that she was looking for it...almost everybody present was armored. Lady Morag. Ser Timothy. Lady Liza, Ser Derren. They stood casually enough, but now she saw the tension in their shoulders. 

“The old Arl was good to us,” Bann Esmerelle said. “You should not have killed him.”

Then many things happened at once. A bolt flew out of the darkness at the edges of the hall, right at her. The Seneschal exclaimed, and moved—the bolt found its target in his arm instead of her throat. Loriel followed the bolt’s path to a man standing in the shadows—she’d utterly failed to notice him—and then to Yvanne, who stood closest to him. It was she who reacted fastest—her hands were lit with something vivid green and poisonous, and she moved to cast.

But he was too quick. Whatever she’d meant to cast took too long, and before she could finish, he had a knife to her throat.

“No sudden moves!” he growled, pressing the blade to her throat. “Magic won’t save her if I cut fast and deep enough.”

Her blood went cold. She was only vaguely aware that the armed and armored nobility of the arling of Amaranthine were moving now too. Those with swords had them drawn. Those with bows had them nocked. But she knew this only distantly. All her attention was on the man in the shadows, and Yvanne, and the knife. 

_ “Stop,” _she said. It was not a blood spell—she was not so stupid as that, and if the bolt intended for her had been laced with magebane (she thought she could detect its vile sickly-sweet scent), it had not found its mark. It was a simple entropic spell, her own version. Mass paralysis. She’d modified it to not require blood at all.

That was what it meant to do entropic magic. She knew the nature of things was to slow down, to stop, to cease. A master of entropy knew how to help it along.

Everyone but herself was frozen in place.

She crossed the room to where the frozen assassin still held an immobile blade to Yvanne’s throat. The spell had caught her, too—there’d been no helping it. Spells were difficult to make both powerful and precise.

The paralyzed assassin was an Antivan Crow. She noted this in an absent kind of way. She wondered whether she ought to keep him for questioning, leave him alive—he was, after all, entirely in her power now—but then she realized that she didn’t care. She crushed his heart inside his chest. It was easier to do it with blood magic, some things always would be, but a well-placed force cage could do it too.

Once he was dead she dismissed the paralysis. The knife clattered to the floor.

“Yvanne, are you alright?” She took her by the arms, sure she sounded mad. But she didn’t care about anything else until she made _ sure. _

“Me?! I’m fine! What about—?”

Loriel sighed in relief. “Good, good, that’s good, I’d never have forgiven myself if…”

“Loriel,” Yvanne said insistently, “_ the nobles.” _

“Oh,” she said dully. “Yes, I suppose I do need to deal with this lot, don’t I?”

Loriel picked up the knife, almost idly. Surprisingly, it didn’t seem to be poisoned, at least not with any of the poisons Zevran had told her about. But it was sharp. Very sharp. She nicked her thumb while handling it, gave a little gasp of pain, then slid it into her belt.

She changed the spell, subtly. A mass paralysis was draining. She wouldn’t have been able to keep it up for much longer, and then there would have been a huge fight. Good men might have died. Men she was responsible for. She couldn’t let that happen. Yes, it was a risk, but the cut was small. No one would notice. 

Her own men were released, taking deep gasps of air. Only then did it occur to her that it would have been difficult or even impossible to breathe while under the effects of that particular spell. If she’d tried to keep it up much longer, she might have killed somebody by accident.

She gestured for her men to stand down. It still pleased her how readily they listened. To them, she was still the Commander. The Hero of Ferelden. At least somebody still thought so.

She turned to address the nobles. She almost didn’t know what to say.

“I’m very disappointed in every single one of you,” she said. “I truly did not expect to experience something like this. I thought better of you.”

No response from the nobles. Of course there wasn’t. They were paralyzed. Their very blood was hers to command.

“I thought we’d be able to work together.” Dismayed, Loriel shook her head. “And now what am I supposed to do with you?”

By now the Seneschal—also initially caught in the paralysis—was stirring. As though breaking out of an enchantment, Yvanne went to help him. He might well have saved her life, Loriel realized. She’d had no shields at all when the bolt had flown. Most likely they would not have liked what would have happened if her blood had been flowing—but, still.

Loriel supposed she wouldn’t be able to just let them go, but it felt wrong to just end them on the spot. But maybe it couldn’t be helped. She’d done worse to other enemies. What made these ones so special?

She felt very far away from herself.

“I wish I knew that I was doing so wrong that you felt the need to attempt such a thing,” she said. “I don’t think I was doing _ that _bad of a job. I did my best to be wise, to be measured. If I didn’t always make you perfectly happy, well, that could hardly have been helped, could it? Surely you realize that. I’m disappointed. I’m really very disappointed.”

She glanced at the Seneschal and Yvanne, hoping for guidance. Yvanne had a familiar worried look in her eye. _ I hope you know what you’re doing, _it said. No, she couldn’t look to anyone else for this.

“Well, it can’t be helped,” she sighed.

And they died. Neatly, cleanly, no blood. She’d have hated to make trouble for the cleaning staff.

The bodies hit the ground with a short series of thuds. The worst part was the clattering of the swords and daggers. They made the loudest sound. 

“Seneschal Varel,” she said, “Are you alright?” He was sitting and leaning against the Arl’s high chair.

“I’m quite alright. Don’t worry about me.” He sounded awfully weak.

Yvanne gave him a cross look. “I don’t even know how many poisons were in that arrow. You’re lucky to even be alive.”

“You should get some rest,” Loriel said. “You may well have saved both our lives today.”

“Oh, I’m sure you would have been fine.” He chuckled, in a worrying rattled way. “I do believe...you had it well in hand.”

Loriel looked at the bodies of the dead conspirators. That was true enough. She sighed and tried to remember who she was supposed to call to deal with corpses in the foyer. Would there be consequences, she wondered, for slaughtering half the peerage of the entire arling? Probably, she thought gloomily, sitting down in her stupid high-backed chair.

Yvanne saw the Seneschal off to the infirmary, and when she came back Loriel had barely moved from the chair, slumping down in it.

“I really wanted them to like me,” she said hollowly. “Pathetic, isn’t it?”

Yvanne hung back, crossing her arms. Her lip twitched. “But a conspiracy was so ridiculous, you said.”

Loriel gave her a dull look. “You’re really going to I-told-you-so me? Now?”

“That’s right,” she said. “That’s exactly what I’m going to do. You could have died!”

“I was in no danger,” Loriel said. It wasn’t true, she realized. If the magebane-laced arrow had found its mark, it was—possible, but not _ guaranteed, _that she still would have been able to subdue all the targets as easily as she’d been able to.

But then, she did not need access to the Fade to work magic.

“And I won’t insult you by suggesting that you were, either. I know...I trust you can take care of yourself. And, I hope, you trust me to do that, as well. But…” She sighed. “But I put everyone in danger. The seneschal, the staff....I’m sorry.”

Yvanne looked taken aback. “Oh, come on. That easy? You’re not going to make me work for it?”

She shrugged weakly. “I guess not.”

“You’re no fun to be angry at.” Yvanne sat on the armrest, putting her elbow on the back. “Can’t you be defensive for a _ little _longer?” 

Loriel made no reply, staring miserably at the fresh corpses. “I wish I hadn’t had to do that.”

“Yes, well,” Yvanne said gruffly. “Let’s get out of this room. I already put in a corpse-removal request. Yes, I’m wonderful, no need to tell me again.”

“Alright.” 

Yvanne lead her out into the courtyard, where the air was fresher. Loriel tried for a deep breath, but found it shuddering. She’d been cold before, but now her face felt hot and itchy and she felt like crying. There was no reason not to, she suddenly realized, and let the tears fall. Who cared if somebody saw? She couldn’t even keep her vassals from conspiring or her peasants from revolting. Warden-Commander indeed.

“Yvanne, I’m no good at this,” she sniffled. “I’m no good at this, and that’s fine by me. I don’t care. I just—I just want you to know that you’re the most important person in the world to me. You know that and I know you know that but, I just want to say it again.” She rubbed at her eyes, feeling utterly pathetic. “You are the most important person in the world to me.”

“I know. You’re mine, too, you know.” It was the matter-of-fact way she said it, like it wasn’t even remarkable. Like it wasn’t the most marvelous, miraculous thing in the world.

She took her hand. 

Loriel still felt utterly pathetic, but it was mattering less and less by the second.

—

Of course the revelation and destruction of the conspiracy was all anybody wanted to talk about at dinner.

Loriel understood why. It was exciting. For all the danger inherent to their jobs, being a Warden was interminably boring most of the time. And none of the rest of the them had witnessed it. Yvanne was giving the blow-by-blow and exaggerating wildly, daring somebody to call her out.

Loriel tried to laugh along, be a good sport, fill in details where she could. The incident had lasted for all of five heart-pounding minutes, and yet they were managing to discuss it for hours. The incident that had been her fault, that she could easily have prevented if only she’d bothered, that she couldn’t remember (however obliquely) without the hot flush of shame creeping up her collar.

She ended up excusing herself early. Even earlier than usual. She didn’t want to hear about how she’d killed all those people with barely a thought. She didn’t want to avoid Anders’ nervously averted gaze. She didn’t want to listen to Yvanne patiently explain to Justice about how it had been perfectly justified.

Death’s child, she thought, and went upstairs to her office. Death’s child, that what they used to call her. She’d always hated it.

Surely there was something she needed to do, but standing in the office with the scattered pages all over the desk, she found she couldn’t think of a single such thing. She kept thinking of tasks, starting them, then having her mind wander away. Useless. She threw down the quill and scraped the chair backwards.

It was then that her eye fell on the glass vial on the mantelpiece. She hadn’t paid it any attention in months, and it took her a moment to remember what it was. Avernus’s vial. She’d never thrown it away. Why hadn’t she? Perhaps she’d been worried what it would do to the soil if she did.

She picked it up, felt its weight in her hand. Viscous blood-black liquid sloshed inside. It felt curiously warm, though it had been standing on the cool mantlepiece for months now. She slipped it into her pocket.

Suddenly the walls of her office felt curiously oppressive. All these accoutrements of the commander’s position, the commander’s position that she was so woefully inadequate at fulfilling—they made her sick. It had been a mistake to ever kill that stupid archdemon. She should have let Yvanne do it. Then _ she _would have been offered the post, and she would have been doing much better. But no. In the moment, Loriel had been standing closest to it. How was she supposed to know that killing the wretched thing would have lead to this terrible job?

She took to the halls, taking turns down unfamiliar hallways almost at random. Anytime she heard someone approach, she reversed direction, or took another path. She’d spent strangely little time exploring the place, in all these months. Somehow anytime she wasn’t abroad, all she wanted to do was hide in her office. But now even that haven was lost to her.

She ended up in the dungeons, where she’d first met Nathaniel Howe. They were empty--the Warden-Commander did not take prisoners--and that meant quiet, blessedly quiet. Compelled by something she couldn’t describe, she kept going, into the passageways beyond.

Illuminated only by weak magelight, she was alone.

There was a pass to the Deep Roads there, though it had been sealed now. She couldn’t possibly have gone through it--her magic was powerful, but it was subtle. It couldn’t rip apart earth and stone, and she’d probably have hurt herself trying. But suddenly a great part of her wished that it could. She wished she could have passed through and journeyed into the Deep Roads, lose herself in darkness and in Blight and in blood, to be amongst the darkspawn who she nearly felt were more truly her brethren than the Wardens were.

As she had the thought, a chill went through her. What a morbid thing to think. Of course it wasn’t true. Probably this place itself, along with her fragile mental state, was drawing her mind to such things.

She put her hand on the stone wall, steadying herself, feeling its coolness first against her palm, then her cheek. And she heard something...odd. A click, so soft she barely heard it. Felt it, more nearly.

She reached out with her magic, and pressed. A hidden mechanism triggered, and secret passageway slid open. They must have missed it on the initial sweep of the place. She was reminded of an incident years past when Anders had had the Templars convinced there were secret passageways riddling Kinloch Hold. Yvanne had thought it was hilarious.

These ones were very much real; Nathaniel had told her about them. They weren’t uncommon in fortresses like these, passageways for servants, or else built to facilitate escapes in times of siege—or trysts between secret lovers. Nathaniel and his sister had mostly used them for hide-and-seek. 

It seemed they went deeper than anybody realized. Who had put them here, she wondered? Who had dwelled in Vigil’s Keep before the Howes? Who had built it? 

She followed the newly opened passageway. It lead to what she could only describe as some kind of bunker. Shelves extruded from the wall, empty now save for some clay vessels of unknown contents. A stone table, hewn from the surrounding rock, was raised in the center of the room, stained darkly with something Loriel could only guess at. There was little else. The place was long-abandoned, whatever it had been its original purpose. 

A sense of calm settled over her, deeper and truer than any she’d felt in months. Maybe she was simply so used to being surrounded by circular stone walls, and this place was evoking them. Only this wasn’t the Tower. This wasn't a prison. This room was hers, only hers.

She took out Avernus’s vial again, swirling its contents. She wondered if the old blood mage she’d taken it from had had any progress in studying the Blight. She wondered if maybe she should study it, too.

Isn’t that what Irving had always said? That she was the best, that she was a prodigy? Well, what use was that, if she couldn’t put those talents to good use? 

She set the vial upon the stone table. Glassware she could get in Amaranthine. Ingredients, too. And in her own blood ran the Blight, and she was, herself, a blood mage.

She’d been avoiding admitting it, except obliquely or in farce. She simply knew a few blood magic techniques. She could do a few spells. She wasn’t a blood mage, she could simply do blood magic. It was different.

But thinking back, that was a self-deception, wasn’t it? Down here in the dark, she could admit it.

She tried it, out loud, tasting it on her tongue.

She was a blood mage.

And that could be a good thing.


	6. Chapter 6

A part of Yvanne found it chilling to see Loriel speaking so calmly and evenly with a monster, as though it was simply another person that needed her help and not a corrupted monstrosity. Her skin crawled to see its beady too-alive eyes, set above a noseless skeletal face, its pale skin standing out in the driving rain.

But the greater part of her was thinking only of what the thing had told her.

The Keep. _ The Keep was under attack. _

“What are we waiting for?” she yelled, over the rain and the thunder and the sounds of the chaos coming from within the city. “We need to go back!” 

Loriel turned her head slowly to look at her, as though surprised to hear her speak. Yvanne could vaguely hear Constable Aiden agreeing with her, urging the Commander to go back to defend the Keep, but all she could focus on was Loriel’s pale wet face.

She shook her head, so slightly. “We aren’t going back.”

“Wh-what?” The slopping cold rain was making her teeth chatter. She looked back at the city, but she wasn’t really seeing it. “The city’s already lost! We have to go back to the Keep before everyone’s killed!”

Lightning flashed and briefly illuminated the Warden-Commander’s expression. “We have to try,” she said. “There may be survivors.”

It was exactly the same thing she had said at Kinloch. Yvanne was suddenly thrown back there, and every muscle in her body tensed. She hated thinking about that horrible stretch of days. She hated to think about the kind of person she had revealed herself to be.

And then she thought about the Keep, her high grey walls, her fluttering banners, and she thought of those walls falling, those banners burning, and every part of her cried out, _ no! _

She couldn’t let that happen, she _ couldn’t, _she just needed to make Loriel understand how serious it was—

"I don't care," she said, although she did, "I'm going back."

Loriel’s big eyes went bigger. The heavy rain had plastered her hair to her forehead. “What? No. No, no. We need to do this together,” she said, sounding weaker and shriller than she’d probably intended.

“So come back with me—help me save our home.”

Something flashed in her face at the mention of _ home, _something dark and pained. “I can’t,” she said. “I’m the Commander. I have a duty…I just can't.”

_ Yes! Yes, you do! _ Yvanne wanted to shriek. _ To the Keep! To our people! To me! Why do you have a duty to everyone but _me?

She opened her mouth to say so, but nothing came out. She couldn’t string the words together. All she could think about was the Vigil burning, everything she had built gone, just like that. What could she say to make Loriel _ understand? _

Nothing. Maybe there was nothing. She realized it all at once, in a flash. It had been like this back during the Blight, too. Yvanne could never change Loriel’s mind, not about anything.

So she found herself saying, and meaning, “Fine. You can’t. But I will.”

And she turned to go. She was gratified to feel Loriel's hand dart out and close over her wrist. "_What? _No, you can't do that, I need you."

It was so good to hear, but it wasn’t true. “You don’t,” Yvanne laughed. “Who are you kidding? I’m a nothing-mage compared to you. You don’t need me at all.”

“But what if something happens?” Loriel said wretchedly.

“It’s already happening,” Yvanne said, and as she did her heart leapt into her throat—her soldiers all in silver, her high granite walls, her warm halls and high ceilings. Her people. She had never thought of herself as having a people before. 

There was a long moment when neither spoke. Yvanne thought, surely she won’t let me go, just like that. Surely, she’ll see—

Loriel stepped forward, and cupped her cheek, murmuring. An enchantment flowed over her, cool and tingling and feeling so familiar. Loriel’s magic would always feel familiar.

“There,” she said quietly. “For protection.”

_ No, this isn’t right, _ Yvanne was thinking, _ this can’t possibly be— _but her mouth was saying. “Stay safe. For me.”

“For you? Anything.” 

She kissed her. And then she said, “Half the forces are yours to command.” Yvanne thought to protest—to divide their meager forces was madness—but they were not simple mortal women. They were mages, fire made flesh.

Loriel went towards Amaranthine, and Yvanne went towards the Keep, and for as long as she lived, Yvanne would never know which one of them stepped away first.

—

Yvanne had let a handful of tears fall, on the frantic journey back. Loriel had just let her go, and it hurt, it hurt—but she’d been right. Loriel didn’t need her. But the others did.

When she reached the Keep, it was already under attack. These darkspawn they dispatched at once. They had made it before the battle had truly begun. Inside, the soldier’s eyes brightened at the sight of her. Oghren roared joyfully, and the Seneschal’s shoulders slumped in relief, clasping her hand and asking her orders. 

It would turn out not to matter.

The darkspawn came, and they kept coming, and her men and women died, and they kept dying. Yvanne had begun the battle as an eye of a storm, crackling and striking bright burning death from above at any that came close, but soon enough she was forced to spend all her mana on healing spell after healing spell. She found herself desperately wishing she’d paid more attention to Wynne’s lessons.

She just wasn’t much of a healer, and a healer was what they needed right now. 

Eventually she had to sleep. She retreated, let Garahel take command for a while. She collapsed on a bedroll in the great hall, and slept.

No dreamless sleep was to be had, for a mage overindulging in lyrium. She awoke in the Fade, lucid and aware that she was dreaming. Her heart sank. In a state like this, she would awake physically rested, but mentally as exhausted as ever.

She found herself on a ghostly shore of Fade-stuff. At first she was alone. Then she reached out.

_ Loriel! _she not-quite-called.

And there she was in the dream. Alive, wherever she was. However she was doing in the material realm, in the Fade she looked as she always did—luminous, transcendent. Yvanne couldn’t touch her, not really, but she could see her.

Ever since the Battle of Denerim, when Yvanne had nearly been lost to the mortal realm forever and Loriel had brought her back, they’d been connected. They’d created this place together, though mostly on accident, this ghostly shore that functioned as their private demesne. When they dreamt, they could find each other, but mostly the dreams remained dreams, senseless and half-forgotten, with nothing much more than a gut feeling to confirm that they really were meeting here, in the world beneath the world. But Yvanne had learned to trust her gut feelings. 

_ I miss you, _ Yvanne said, hoping she could somehow hear her. _ I’m sorry. _

The waves rolled in and out and for a time their dreaming selves could sit together. And before she knew it, before she was ready, Yvanne was being shaken awake, and the battle went on.

And on. And on. And _ on... _

Wave after wave came. She drank potion after cobalt potion. This was enough lyrium to have rendered her comatose only a year ago, but now it wasn’t enough, it was never enough. Soldier after soldier fell. Soldier after soldier rose again. Yvanne fought like a demon of rage for every drop of blood. And it was still not enough.

On the third day, the Seneschal fell. Yvanne had been distracted with a complex revival spell, to raise a dozen men from near-death. Halfway through the incantation, the ogre had charged through, right at her. The Seneschal had stopped it. With all her strength, with all her magic, Yvanne could not save him. Not enough lyrium, not enough time. And choking on his blood, his ribcage crushed, the Seneschal had died.

Yvanne had spent months working with this man. She’d grown used to his reserved voice, his fond chuckle, his guidance, his respect. She’d begun to think of him as part of the Keep’s foundations. He’d saved Loriel’s life, saved her life, and she hadn’t saved him back. She’d let him die, because she was busy doing something else.

And she couldn’t even spare a thought to grieve him. She was just too tired.

After the third day she couldn’t permit herself more potions, and consented to sleep. The dream began almost as soon as her head hit the bedroll.

She stood on the ghostly shore again. She knew better than to hope for restful sleep. But this time she was alone. She called out—but received no answer. She really was alone here.

Was Loriel—Yvanne tried and failed to keep herself from thinking it—could she be dead? 

No! No, not dead. She would have known if she was dead. She was alive, just...remote, somehow, for some reason. It was more than wishful thinking; Yvanne could see a shimmering golden thread, emerging from her chest, attached to something, someone else on the other side, and it felt _ familiar. _It had to be her. 

The thread trailed through the sand and off into the verdant Fade-wrought jungle behind her. She had always been taught not to wander the Fade. Horrors lurked in places just off the path, and Yvanne had by now seen enough horrors to not want to see them again. 

But she had to know. She had to be sure. She needed to see Loriel more than she was afraid of anything she might find looking for her.

The jungle warped strangely, growing and shifting, resolving into something that was not a jungle, into a dark place Yvanne didn’t understand. _ Loriel! _ she called. _ Where are you? _

And suddenly there she was, crouched behind something, looking tired and bloody but living, unhurt. Yvanne called out to her, reached out to her, but her hand passed right through Loriel’s shoulder. She was a ghost. Loriel had no idea she was present.

Where _ was _here, anyhow? It was a dark grey place of shades and shadows, flickering at the outlines as though it was underwater. With difficulty, Yvanne could make it out—Amaranthine. And the figures by Lorie, who she spoke to with soft authority—yes, that was Anders, and Justice, and Sigrun. They were crouched behind an enormous piece of rubble, a city already fractured. 

But if this was Fade-Amaranthine, whose memory was this? And how had she gotten here, from Vigil’s Keep? It looked like no demesne of the Fade. In fact, it…

All of a sudden Yvanne understood. This was not Fade-Amaranthine. This was the _ real _Amaranthine. She’d followed Loriel here, through the Fade, and now she walked the mortal world as a spirit.

_ Anders, _ she said, _ aren’t you a spirit healer? Pay attention, would you? Hey! Tell her I’m here! _

When she touched him, she felt him shudder, but he otherwise did not react. _Justice? _she tried.

Nothing! If she had to guess, it was because Loriel was anchoring her here. But if that was the case, why couldn’t she see her? 

Blood magic, Yvanne realized. It eroded one’s connection to the Fade. Of course. Then she got worried. Loriel rarely used blood magic. How much of her own blood had she spilled in this conflict?

_ I wish you could see me, _she said. 

Loriel’s lips were moving, incanting, and with a start Yvanne beheld her face. She looked so cold. All around her were dead bodies that she had raised to serve her in this battle, and she surveyed them with utter calculation. Even as she crouched and considered her next move, the screams of the dying and the woundedreached her—though Yvanne could barely hear them, how loud they must have been—and moved her not at all. She finished saying something to Anders, who nodded, shying away, and then Loriel leapt out from behind the rubble and cast her spell, and—

Yvanne found herself yanked from one battlefield back to another, feeling no more rested than before.

Someone handed her another potion of wakefulness, two of lyrium. She drank them as fast as she could without throwing up.

_ Do not give an inch. _

On the fifth day, Velanna disappeared. Yvanne didn’t know exactly when. She had seen her that day, calling up the earth itself to swallow up its enemies, ensnaring them, and then Yvanne had taken her eyes off her to concentrate on something else. And then Velanna was gone, and at first Yvanne thought nothing of it, hadn’t even noticed. When she did not appear again, there was no time to search for a body. There was hardly even time to mourn her presumed loss.

Yvanne held the line. Her body forgot exhaustion, forgot pain. It knew only the lyrium song, the determination _ not to give an inch. _ It would all come crawling back for her, but not yet, _ not yet. _

On the seventh day, Yvanne slew the Herald. It had been stupid enough to come forward, to attempt to engage her directly, and she’d taken it down with every dirty trick in the book. No triumph, no glory, no heroism, but once it was dead, the remainder of its force retreated. The stragglers were picked off in short order. Now all that was left was to tend to the survivors.

Blearily, Yvanne realized the siege was over.

If Loriel had been here, it would all have been over within a day. She was so powerful. She was holding a whole city practically by herself, and here Yvanne was with a whole army, all the supplies she could possibly need, and she’d still struggled so much. And so many had died. And the Keep was still standing, but only just.

She stood in her ruined Keep, its flagstones slick with blood both red and black. There were more living men than corpses here, but only just. She had won. But only just.

Yvanne felt herself falling backwards a long way, a far longer way than merely to the ground, into a dark so deep that even for her it could be dreamless.

—

On the dawn after the seventh day, the assault on Amaranthine broke. The handful of survivors emerged from hiding. The streets of the city ran black with darkspawn blood. Much of it was destroyed, but much remained. Loriel had won. Amaranthine was saved. And she felt…

Nothing in particular.

She’d saved these people, and they knew it, and besides, she was the Arlessa and the famous Warden-Commander—but they’d also seen how she’d done it. They’d seen her raise the dead, make puppets of the living, drain them of life to augment her own, and it had _ worked _. She’d saved them.

But it didn’t matter. They were afraid of _ her _now, not the darkspawn. 

She stalked through the ruined streets, halfheartedly looking for survivors. She had expended more magical energy here than ever before. More even than at Denerim, where she had had armies at her beck and call, where she had needed only to stay alive long enough to stab an oversized Blight-worm. Here she had fought and struggled for every inch, for every life. She’d tried so _ hard. _

Here she hadn’t even had Yvanne. It didn’t matter, in some ways. Yvanne had been right about their relative skill. Anders served fine as a healer. It had been the right choice, to split up. They were more than capable, separately, and they were responsible for people’s lives. They’d done the right thing. Loriel knew that.

Still, every time she thought about it, something dark and furious roared inside her heart.

Of course she knew that Yvanne cared about the Keep, and it’s people, too, when it came to that. She would have had to have been truly blind to have missed that. But she had somehow always thought that it was...a side project, something to occupy her time with. That’s how it had always been with Yvanne.

Since when did Yvanne care _ that _much about anything at all?

Loriel had always prided herself on knowing exactly what was going on inside her mind. She had to—fine control over one’s mental state was part and parcel with fine control over one’s magic. So it took her no time at all to figure it out. Loriel had asked Yvanne to make a choice, and she hadn’t chosen her. Of course it hurt. It would have been absurd, for it not to have hurt.

She noted it, that antipathy, that despair, examining it like a curious artifact picked up in an ancient ruin. It was an old, jealous, ugly feeling, that she had, for all these years, kept in a little box, latched tight, where it could do no harm.

But now it was out, and she could not get away from it. All throughout the battle it had followed her, feeding her spells, surrounding her like a murky cloud, corrosive like rust.

She paused in her search to lean against some rubble and drink from her water skin. She’d inhaled an awful lot of dust over the past few days.

The problem was…

Before she and Yvanne had—sorted things out—Loriel had had no expectations. She’d had no reason, no _ right, _ to expect anything from her. To be regarded by her as a friend, a _ best _friend, even that had felt like a secret miracle. Like something she didn’t deserve, and was only getting as a result of some kind of cosmic fluke, stolen in a moment when the Maker’s attention was elsewhere. 

But now, over the past year…

Now it felt like she had something to lose. 

And the worst part of it was, that it shouldn’t have felt like losing anything. Yvanne had been right. It _ was _her Keep. These were her people, as much a people as she could have.

Unbidden, she remembered something Velanna had said to her.

She scowled and resumed her search.

Maybe she didn’t want a people. Maybe she didn’t want to be anything to any of them. Maybe she just wanted to live unbeholden. And she could have, if not for Yvanne, if not for Yvanne caring so much that she would abandon her. For the first time in all their lives, she’d really done it—all for this futile, dying, facsimile of a family that they were all a part of—

And because Loriel prided herself on knowing what was going on inside her own mind so well, she recognized these thoughts and feelings as what they were: emotional garbage. Irrational, harmful, and ridiculous, in every way imaginable. She let herself feel them, as there was no point in not feeling them. She let them flow through her, tear at her heart, nearly consume her—and then she took them all, and put them away, and crushed them into nothingness.

Now she felt calm again.

Amaranthine was saved. But there was still work to be done. There would be no time to return to the Keep, to see who—to see what—well, there was no time. She would have to press on.

The work ahead would suit her better.

—

They had already begun to clean up the bodies. Nathaniel was doing his level best to direct things, along with Captain Garahel. Two pyres were being built. One inside the walls, for their men—one outside, for the spawn. 

Velanna had not appeared. Yvanne ordered them to keep searching. Oghren was gone, too, but him they found not too much later, passed out drunk on the roof, and Maker only knew how he’d gotten up there.

Things were running well enough without her. Of course they were. She’d arranged it that way. Arranged all of this, with a zealous mania whose source she did not dare question, for months and months. And there still stood the high granite walls, and there still gleamed the silverite armor, and there still stood her soldiers. Some of them, anyway.

Yvanne was thrown violently back to the last time she had been in Kinloch. Suddenly she was two years younger and so angry and so _ sad, _so horrified, even though that place had never been a home.

Could anyplace be her home? She was just fooling herself in thinking as much, wasn’t she? Who had she ever been kidding? What was she trying to prove? She didn’t belong here. She didn’t belong anywhere. She needed to get out—

A gloved hand landed on her shoulder. Nathaniel.

“Commander,” he said. “They didn’t find a body. Velanna could still be alive.” 

And all the sadness fled, because somebody needed her, and she’d never really been needed before, and it felt like liquid sunlight, to be needed. So she said with ease and grace, “’Course she’s alive. Don’t be morbid.”

“Right,” he said, half-believing in her confidence. “We could use some help getting Oghren off the roof.”

“Of course you do. Point me to where I need to be.”

She turned back to the mess, ready to face it. Yvanne did not pray, but in what might have halfway passed for one, she prayed for Loriel’s swift return. Because the Keep was almost, but not quite, a home. Not without her. 

She dreamt that night again, of a dark place she had no name for. It wasn’t Amaranthine...but then, what was it? There was Loriel, her face carefully neutral, though every muscle in her body spoke of warning. She was arguing...with who? _ Justice? _The spirit did like to argue, but with Loriel? Loriel and the spirit hardly ever disagreed…

No, not only Justice. Sigrun, too. Her gaunt features were furious—her hand twitching near her weapon. What had _ happened? _

The argument ended. Justice backed off. So did Sigrun. Yvanne could barely see Anders’ shoulders relax—he’d been tense. But Anders was always tense. She couldn’t hear him, but she could see his forced grin, see his mouth move in what was assuredly a dreadful joke of some kind.

Loriel turned away from the Wardens and stepped towards another figure, one Yvanne hadn’t noticed. Now she beheld it and at first couldn’t tell what she was looking at. It was a man, or something like a man, but warped and twisted, all save the lower half of its face. Was that—the thing who'd made them briefly prisoner silverite mines? 

Was she talking to the _ Architect? _

Yvanne searched desperately for an answer, but couldn’t figure out why Loriel would possibly be treating with it.

But she was. She spoke with it at length—Yvanne wished that she could read lips—and then waved the party on into the darkness, leaving the Architect unharmed. The scene dissolved into shards of light and feeling, and Yvanne saw no more.

She woke more sore and aching than before. At first she lay there, considered her dream, wondered desperately what was happening. What did _ any _of it mean?

But then all at once she decided that it didn’t matter. And anyway, she had work to do.

—

On the ninth day the Warden-Commander returned to the ruined Keep. She was weary, acrid black blood mixed with no small amount of her own soaking her garments. But no lasting harm had been done to her. She’d halfway expected a welcome; now she saw the broken walls and plumes of smoke, and her heart seized with terror.

Surely—surely if Yvanne—she would have _ known. _She would have felt it!

She broke into a run.

The gates were gone, in pieces. There was the source of smoke—a great pyre, high with the bodies of the dead. It must have been burning for days. Littering the courtyard were the bodies of the wounded, those tending to them. She searched and searched, ignoring the cries of relief and surprise at the Commander’s return. She cared about one thing and one thing exactly.

She wasn’t being a good leader, wasn’t supporting people who’d sworn to be in her service, and she didn’t _ care. _

In the panicked fog, it only occurred to her several minutes later simply to _ ask _ — _ “ _Where is the Warden-Lieutenant?”

Someone pointed her towards the courtyard, but that didn’t mean she was alive. She wouldn’t believe it until she saw. Somehow her heart was already grieving. Why had she let her go alone? She’d been so stupid! For some stupid city she didn’t even care about! She’d grieve her whole life, never stop regretting—

Then she saw her, those tending to the wounded, directing other non-magical healers, looking tired and sweaty, but alive.

She looked up and saw her while Loriel was still busy staring in stupefied relief, and smiled. She didn’t look surprised to see her. Happy, but not surprised. Why not surprised? Hadn’t she been worried at all? She crossed the distance between them and all at once everything was fine again.

“Well it’s about time you showed up,” she said lightly, when it had been long enough that they could stand to let go for a moment. Loriel could smell the lyrium on her; she’d been taking too much again. “How very like you, you know, to leave me with all the hard work while you go off on wild adventures into the blue. Very bold of you. Do you have any idea how bored I’ve been without you? Nothing but darkspawn for company. Awful. I suppose you saved Amaranthine singlehandedly? Figures nobody would tell me you were back, not like I didn’t just spend over a week keeping this place together.”

She carried on like that for several minutes, catching Loriel up on everything that had transpired, alluding only vaguely to the major events of the siege and going into precise detail about all the various minor annoyances she’d experienced, like a shortage of spindleweed and the incompetence of her temporary teenage assistants. Somehow she managed to talk nonstop for minutes at a time without letting on at all who was dead and who was alive. Loriel followed her silently, listening, and then she thought, _ Something’s not right. _

“How long have you been awake for?”

“Oh, you know,” Yvanne said vaguely. “Now that you mention it I suppose I am a bit tired. I’m sure you’re tired, too. Ugh, and you need a bath. I’ll have someone run a bath.”

She went on like that, giving instructions to an endlessly rotating cast of underlings, none of whom Loriel recognized and could only assume had materialized out of thin air, right up until they were out of sight. As they went up the stairs and the hallways and up to their chambers, Yvanne trailed off, her words growing choked and heavy and stopping altogether.

_ There it is, _ Loriel thought, realizing. Yvanne knew better than to let that show where people could see her, when they were looking to her for strength. Because she was a real leader, not like the so-called Warden-Commander. She had learned how to be what people needed her to be. When had she learned how to do that? When had Loriel forgotten it?

“Yvanne? Are you alright?”

“It’s been,” she said, rubbing at her eyes, “it’s been a difficult couple of days.” To Loriel’s complete surprise, she began to weep. She wept into Loriel’s hair, wept and wept and couldn’t seem to stop. She hadn’t cried like this in, oh, years and years.

“Let’s get you to bed,” Loriel said, rubbing small circles into her shoulders.

“Why were you talking to the Architect?” Yvanne asked suddenly, in a stronger, clearer voice than Loriel was expecting. It had the taste of a question she'd been waiting to ask for a while.

She stared. “I...how could you possibly know about that?”

“Did you dream at all, while we were apart?” Yvanne asked, which made no sense at all. 

“No, I—I haven’t been remembering my dreams recently. I’m sure I have them, but…”

“I see.” She wasn’t weeping any longer. Now she was back to just looking tired, maybe more tired than she’d ever been. More tired than Loriel had ever seen her, anyway.

“I think,” Loriel said carefully, “I think there’s rather a lot I need to tell you.”

“Right. Me, too.”

They looked at each other, as though checking if maybe nine days apart had permanently changed anything about either one of them.

Of course that was ridiculous. Of course they were always changing, at every moment of every day. 

“Let’s start with…” Loriel hesitated, but only a moment. “There’s a chamber, in the depths of the Keep. I should show it to you.”


	7. Chapter 7

Yvanne decided she wanted a garden.

The Howes had had a garden in the inner courtyard, but it had withered and died, and now only rotting leaves littered it. Well, not if Yvanne had anything to say about it. _ Her _garden would have rose bushes and stone benches and black and white marble tiles. In the foggy depths of her childhood memory there was such a garden, in those memories where she still had a mother, although surely the garden in her memory was brighter and warmer than any real one had ever been. 

The rebuilding was happening anyway. The Vigil’s beautiful walls were nearly all torn down, the keep itself riddled with holes. It would take so long to fix. So why not a garden? At least it made her feel better.

It could have been worse. It _ would _have been worse, if not for the high iron walls and the strong armor of silverite. Yvanne comforted herself with this thought, in the moments when little else brought her comfort.

Loriel was sympathetic, Loriel was nothing but soft to her about it, but she didn’t _ understand. _She hadn’t been there. She hadn’t lived it with her, and Yvanne was coming to realize that what had happened during the siege had changed her in some important way, shifted her soul just slightly to the left. She couldn’t explain it, couldn’t pin it down, but the person who’d left Loriel outside Amaranthine was not the same person who met her again in the courtyard.

It was a small change, a small shift, the cry of a young sparrow in the dense wood. But it was there, nonetheless.

These days Yvanne focused on learning more spirit healing. She rarely picked up a sword anymore.

She regretted looking in on Loriel through their Fade connection. She had seen a version of her that she’d never seen before, a strange cold woman who Yvanne didn’t know at all. She didn’t understand that Loriel, and maybe didn’t want to. In retrospect, it felt like a violation, although Loriel never said so. She’d told her everything, but now Yvanne didn’t know if she’d done it because she’d always intended to, or because Yvanne had already seen it.

Loriel tended to keep things to herself, it was true. She hadn’t mentioned learning blood magic when she’d first learned it, hadn’t mentioned her secret chamber below the Keep when she’d first claimed it, but those things made sense. They’d grown up in a prison tower filled with armored men ready to kill them for any perceived transgression. There wasn’t a Circle mage alive—and still possessing all of their faculties—who was not a master in hiding and deceiving. It wasn’t something you could easily turn off.

Yvanne wasn’t much good at it. She figured she was only alive now because Loriel had done the work for both of them. So she could hardly blame her for tending to be a little secretive now that they were out.

She shouldn’t have looked. 

Slowly the walls of Vigil’s Keep rose again. Yvanne helped re-raise them. She took charge of the resupply logistics. She built her garden.

Sometimes she forgot Varel wasn’t the Seneschal anymore.

The weeks passed by, and with every passing day it seemed more and more likely that Velanna was gone for good. Whether she was dead or simply not returning, she was gone.

And then one day Velanna appeared.

She strode through the gates as though she had every right to be there, as though no time had passed at all. Yvanne had been with the victims of a recent construction accident when she heard. She ran straight to the outer courtyard, where she could do the important business of Yelling.

“And just where the hell have you been?” was what she lead with. Velanna looked so gaunt and drawn, like she’d been living rough for all these weeks, that Yvanne almost regretted yelling. Almost. “Have you any idea how many men I’ve _ wasted _looking for you? What an uproar you caused? And here you are looking fine as anything.”

Yvanne waited for the cutting reply, but it never came. Velanna mumbled something apologetic, and then Nathaniel appeared out of the Keep, unconcealed joy radiating from his face. He asked her no questions and demanded no answers, only embraced her tightly—as a comrade?—and Velanna didn’t protest. She even closed her eyes, leaned in to the touch, and consented to being taken inside.

Really? she thought, watching them go. Them? _Those _two? Well, stranger things had happened.

When she had no more duties to assign herself, Yvanne went back inside and collapsed in relief, not quite realizing how heavy a burden she’d been carrying.

—

“I need to tell you something,” Velanna said, closing the office door behind her.

Loriel nodded and gestured for her to sit. That was a major part of her leadership style, all the nodding and gesturing. It got most of the job done, depending on the job. 

Velanna, looking a little better now than when she’d first arrived, eyed the petitioner’s chair with suspicion. She gingerly took a seat. “I went looking for my sister.”

“Yes, I assumed as much.”

Velanna glared. “You’re really mocking me?”

There was a time when that would have flustered her. “That isn’t what I meant, and you know that isn’t what I meant. Say what you have to say.” Why couldn’t Velanna have simply told Yvanne whatever she’d had to say? Why was she talking to _ her? _

“I heard what you did at Drake’s Fall,” Velanna said. “You spared it. The darkspawn.”

Loriel tightened. “The Architect. Yes. How do you know that?”

“Sigrun told me.”

Loriel didn’t flinch, but it was a near thing. Sigrun had been so angry with her. She’d even thought things would come to violence; the disabling spells had been on the tip of her tongue. She would have spoken them, if Sigrun had gone for her axes. She would have. She knew it.

She hated knowing that about herself, that she’d slay a friend and teammate at what now felt like so little provocation. At no other time had she wished more bitterly that Yvanne had been with her. Yvanne would have known just what to say to make Sigrun come around. It had been her who’d made them a real team, always passing out presents and bothering everyone for their life stories. Loriel was the Commander, but she knew who they were really loyal to.

Now Sigrun didn’t trust her. She still smiled when she saw her, still went about her duties. But she didn’t trust her. Loriel had tried so _ hard, _and still ruined it before the end.

“I see,” Loriel said evenly. “What about it?”

“It was the right thing to do.”

Loriel blinked, and said nothing. Velanna was growing more uncomfortable beneath her gaze by the moment. 

“I meant that as a peace offering,” Velanna said irritably. “Can you accept it so I can tell you what I’ve been doing?”

The Commander sighed. “I...apologize. Please, do tell me.”

“I have been in the Deep Roads.”

Not surprising. “The way I heard it, you disappeared in the middle of the battle, beneath a heap of rubble. Yvanne was very upset.”

Velanna scowled. “I was in no danger. I can move through the earth. But when I called to the earth to protect me, I fell through, into the tunnels below the Keep. They lead to the Deep Roads.”

“You didn’t think to rejoin the battle?”

“I thought I saw Seranni. In the shadows.” 

Ah. “And you went after her. Or what you thought was her.”

“Yes.” Velanna leaned her forehead against her wooden staff for a moment. “I don’t know if it was really her, then, or just my imagination. But I had to check.”

She said nothing for long enough that Loriel was compelled prompt, “How did you survive down there? You were gone for weeks and weeks. Were you down there that entire time?”

“I don’t want to talk about that,” Velanna said, gripping her staff tighter. “I survived, that’s all that matters. And I did find Seranni.”

Loriel held still.

“She was with it. Him. The Architect.” She scowled. “We talked.”

“What did you talk about?” 

“None of your business,” Velanna said, muttering an elvehn curse Loriel couldn’t understand. “I used to hope he would release her. But I was wrong. He’s never going to release her. She doesn’t even want to be released. She _ believes _in it, what he’s doing.”

“And you don’t,” Loriel surmised.

“I don’t give a single _ mihrnig _about what the Architect is doing,” Velanna said. “I just wanted my sister back. But I…” She inhaled sharply. “I have accepted that she has made her choice. So whatever you and that thing are doing, whatever idiot plot you have to end the Blights and bring peace amongst the darkspawn, this thing that Seranni was willing to throw away her life for—it had better be worth it.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Loriel said delicately. 

“The Architect had a message for you.” Velanna let out a long, slow exhale. “He said...he said that he accepts your terms. And that he looks forward to working with you.” She said it all in one breath, as though the words had been imprisoned in her mouth and were now being set free.

She practically threw a leather bag onto Loriel’s desk. “Now take this thing off my hands before it poisons me.”

It landed with a heavy thump, and did not bounce.

“That’s all I had to say,” said Velanna. “Do I have the Commander’s _ permission _to depart?”

“You do,” Loriel said. “Thank you for delivering the message. We are all glad that you are back.”

Velanna probably hadn’t heard the last part. She was already out of the petitioner’s chair and at the door when Loriel got to it.

As the echoes of her rapid footsteps died away, Loriel reached for the leather bag, a small thing suspended on a length of chording. Inside was a crystal, perfectly black. Its faces were smooth and it seemed to pulse from within with some kind of anti-light, some energy of its own. It resembled lyrium, more than anything. But it wasn’t lyrium. Interesting, Loriel thought. She would study it carefully. And of course she was pleased to hear from the Architect.

She had no other meetings for the day, and it was late enough that it was reasonable she not be in office. She headed down to the chamber she could only describe as her laboratory.

Loriel had tried to aid in the rebuilding effort at first. It was only right. She was the master of this Keep, she could help in its re-raising—besides, Yvanne cared about it, that made it important. But somehow she seemed to only get in the way. She didn’t have the skills for it. Unparalleled master of entropy magic she might be, perhaps even a genius not seen for over a century, she didn’t know a single spell that could have been remotely helpful for rebuilding a Keep. With a faint start she realized she was a battlefield mage, and good for little else. 

Well, one other thing, perhaps.

She recalled the conversation she’d had with Yvanne on the eve of her return to the Keep, down in the lower levels. She had explained everything, what she’d been working towards, why the darkspawn and the Architect were so interesting to her. The idea hadn’t occurred to her until recently—it had been percolating quietly for a long time. 

She was going to cure the Calling. She was going to put an end to the Blights. She was going to transform the world, and she was going to do it her way.

She told Yvanne everything, hopping from idea to idea, about such and such reagents and that sort of distilling process and how she was going to write Avernus and wasn’t it good that they’d kept him alive after all, and how the Architect was going to help her and how it was all going to come together. And Yvanne had listened long and careful and finally put her hands on Loriel’s shoulders. Loriel realized suddenly how much tension she’d been holding in them and tried to relax under her touch, letting her sentence trail off.

“That’s all great. But, listen,” Yvanne said, sliding her palms up to Loriel’s jaw, rubbing small circles on her cheek. Down here amongst the stone, her warmth was all-encompassing. “Are you happy?”

Loriel didn’t know how to answer that. 

“Because you realize of course that you don’t have to do this."

“Of course I know that.

“So why are you doing it?”

She closed her eyes, shamed. "Because...I haven't had my heart with this Keep.” _Because I'm a terrible leader. Because you're better at it than me. Because I've never felt so incompetent... _"But your heart is with it, and my heart is with you. I should have gone with you. I should have protected our home. You needed me, and I let you go, and I’m so, so sorry."

Yvanne twined fingers into her hair, massaging her scalp. “You saved so many lives. What kind of monster would I be to wish you hadn’t done that?”

She noted that Yvanne had not exactly said that she _ didn’t _wish for that. 

Amaranthine hadn't even wanted her. She hadn't even cared about it. She'd saved it because she'd thought she was supposed to. When had she ever done anything except what she was supposed to?

"Sometimes I think I should never have brought us here in the first place," she said miserably. "I knew you didn't want to come. I knew you might hate it. But I pretended I didn't, because I didn't know what else to do with myself, and I was afraid."

“It worked out, though,” Yvanne said softly.

“That’s right. It did. And I’m _ so glad _it did, Yvanne! I’m so glad you have this. I’ve never seen you so happy in my life. Do you have any idea how beautiful that is to me? How could I not be happy?”

Yvanne looked steadily at her. "I do love this Keep," she admitted. "I didn't expect to love it. I didn't expect I could love anything until I realized I loved you, and I thought that was all the love I had in me. But it grew and grew, and there's more of it in me than I thought existed in all the world. What I've built here is precious to me. But that's nothing to what I've built with you. I couldn’t replace that if I lived a thousand years. So if you aren't _truly _happy, if there is anywhere else you wish to be instead—"

Loriel cracked a smile. “No need for that. There’s nothing for us out there. We’ve found a home. Now we just have to live in it.”

“Then we will.” Yvanne said it almost dazed, as though she hadn’t been expecting this. Like she’d been ready to give everything up, and was surprised to realize that she wouldn’t have to.

It still hurt, that she’d left. And Loriel could tell that for all her apologies, Yvanne was no less hurt. But was it any different from all the other times they’d hurt each other? There’d been many such occasions, more than she could count. 

That was what real love was about, Loriel had concluded. You hurt each other, maybe even hurt each other a lot, because how could two lives be lived in such proximity without some measure of pain? You hurt each other, and you stayed, because it was worth it, all of it. It was worth it.

—

They were in bed. Normally they’d be asleep by now, but Yvanne wasn’t sleeping well lately. Ever since the siege, she was taken to waking up suddenly, and taking a long time to get back to sleep. Wine helped, a little. So they were having wine.

“The garden’s almost finished,” Yvanne was saying, “you should see it, it’s beautiful. Not quite like the one I remember, but only because it’s better. No stupid carnations or anything. We should spend more time there. It’s a peaceful place, you should see the roses. I’m thinking of getting a lemon tree. I hear they need a lot of sun to grow, but the summers here are so warm. It might thrive, don't you think? And if it doesn't, that's what magic is for. I really want the damn lemon tree. Fuck it—I'm getting the lemon tree.”

Loriel fiddled with her hair, letting Yvanne’s voice roll over her.

“...but anyway. How was your day?”

She gave the question serious thought, then finally hazarded, “Has Justice...talked to you recently?”

Yvanne wrinkled her nose. “Why? Has he been hassling you about mage freedom, too? He’s been at it for weeks with me, and Anders for even longer, and he’s nearly talked _ him _ round. Now they’re both insufferable and I have no one to talk to at all.”

Loriel paused midway through winding her longest lock of hair around her finger. “Why? Don’t you think mage freedom is just?”

“Just?” said Yvanne, and rolled her eyes. “Show me one gram of justice in the world, one morsel of mercy. The world is what it is. Justice just doesn’t know it yet because he’s the spirit equivalent of a baby.”

"Hm. Maybe so."

"If he’s been hassling you, you should tell him to knock it off and bother somebody who hasn’t already saved the world. Maker knows you’ve done your part.”

“He hasn’t been hassling me. He asked me about...well, he asked me about love.”

“Oh,” said Yvanne. “What about it? Has he been getting on with Aura? I know that’s important to him.”

Loriel thought for a while about how to put it delicately, even though she’d thought of little else all week. “He wanted to know why it is that we love each other but aren’t married. He thinks it’s—er, a requirement.”

Yvanne actually laughed_ . _“Married!” she said. “Imagine that! What with us being mages and all. Not to mention women.”

“Well,” said Loriel, growing heated. “Why not? We aren’t Circle mages anymore. We’re Wardens, and Wardens aren’t forbidden to marry.”

“What Chantry would recognize such a union?”

Loriel sniffed. She got out of bed and threw on a robe, suddenly remembering about some paperwork that she had to do right now immediately. “Well if you hate the idea of marrying me so much you could have said so.”

Yvanne sat as though struck by lightning. “Does that mean—are you asking? Are you _ proposing?” _

“I’m not doing any such thing. Seeing as you’ve made your feelings on the matter perfectly clear. Excuse me. I’ve forgotten something I need to do.”

“Stop that!” Yvanne leapt out of bed, dragging the sheets with her. “Are you serious? You’d marry me?”

Loriel huffed, crossed her arms, and looked away. “You know perfectly well…”

“What is it? What do I know perfectly well?” She struggled with the sheets, tangled. “Do you really mean it?”

"_You know perfectly well," _Loriel said stiffly, "that of course I would marry you. In fact, marrying you has been a frequent daydream of mine since—well, since a long time ago. Which you _surely _must realize."

Yvanne closed her eyes, dragging her fingers down her cheeks. "You have got to be kidding me."

Loriel could feel the beginnings of the blush. "Let's just forget about it."

"Too late! No way am I forgetting about it now. You'd really marry me?"

"A fine proposal," Loriel muttered.

"I'm not proposing, I'm only clarifying."

"Fine, then, _I'm _proposing. Yvanne, my love, will you—?"

"What, here?" Yvanne said, aghast. "In this bedchamber?"

"What's wrong with this bedchamber?"

Yvanne fiddled with a braid, suddenly shy. "It's just not particularly romantic, is it?"

"Well, where else?"

Yvanne thought, rapidly pulling on whatever articles of clothing were nearest at hand. “The balcony! The moon’s almost full. It’ll have to do.” 

She seized her by the hand and they ran through the deserted corridors, to the best balcony. Yvanne threw open the door and pulled Loriel through.

“There,” she said. “That’s better. Do you have a ring? Wait, I think I have one—it grants protection from fire, it’ll do—you can use that.”

“I can hardly give you a ring you already have,” Loriel protested.

"That's a good point. Alright, then, _I'll _propose."

Loriel began to protest, and Yvanne interrupted. "You’ve mucked up your attempt already, that means it’s my turn! Fair’s fair, even Justice would agree to that.”

“You’re taking advantage of me,” Loriel said petulantly, though she was smiling.

Yvanne took out the ring of fire protection, or whatever it was, and sank to one knee. Moonlight bathed Loriel’s face, silvering her hair and glittering in her eyes. How could Yvanne have ever thought her plain? She was the most beautiful woman in the world.

“Loriel Surana, my only love, my truest and my dearest, will you do me the honor of marrying me?”

Loriel had fully intended on hemming and hawing and making a big show of thinking about it. But now that Yvanne was kneeling in front of her like that… “Yes,” she whispered.

She rose from her kneeling position, smoothly into a kiss. It was the most recent of many, and they would both remember it, later.

“We ought to get real rings,” Loriel commented, at length. “Sometime during the course of the engagement.”

“Engagement?” Yvanne whined. “How long’s that going to take? I want to be married to you _ now. _I want to be married to you yesterday. Months ago. Years ago. But now would be almost as good.”

“Now?” Loriel thought about it. “What’s the time?”

“Three hours or so til dawn, I think.”

Loriel nodded thoughtfully. “The Amaranthine chantry is still standing,” she said slowly. “We could make it there by morning. If we rode.”

“By sunrise if we rode hard,” Yvanne said eagerly.

—

They didn’t make it by sunrise, but that was just as well, since Revered Mother Leanna generally didn’t rise until nine at the earliest. Perhaps this wasn’t very holy of her, but, she reasoned, she had spent many long years righteously, diligently rising with the sun to go about doing good works. So in her old age, she felt entirely comfortable giving herself a break.

Which was why it was so annoying to have the gates to her Chantry banged upon no later than seven in the morning. She swore—with Andraste’s pardon, thank you—and shouted that alright, _ alright, _she was on her way, just let her get decent first, and hobbled to the door. She was expecting something dire, perhaps a premature birth or sudden death or abandoned baby, and so was rather put out when instead she found two apparently quite healthy adult women.

Then she blinked, and realized, to her horror, that one of these women was in fact the Arlessa, the Warden-Commander, the odd pale woman who raised the dead and drained vitality from the living—and the only reason the Chantry was standing at all, Revered Mother Leanna sternly reminded herself.

She fell to profuse apologies for her lateness and rudeness, and if there was _ anything _she could do to express her gratitude—

“It’s quite alright,” the Arlessa said mildly. “We’d just like to get married, please.”

Revered Mother Leanna looked between the two of them. “You’d like to get married?” she repeated.

“I’ve got the rings and everything,” said the Arlessa’s—betrothed?—and proudly flashed her left hand. As far as Revered Mother Leanna could tell, she had quite a number of rings, on both hands. Most of them were glowing faintly with enchantment. But the Arlessa was nodding along, displaying her own ring.

“I—well,” said Revered Mother Leanna. Well, she could hardly _ refuse. _“Come on inside, then.”

Most of the sisters had risen already, and watched the proceedings curiously. “You have no witnesses?” said Leanna.

“Oh,” said the Arlessa. “We didn’t think of that. Do we need them?”

“No, no, er, the Maker and his Bride will serve for witnesses. Come along to the altar, then.”

Some of the altar candles had burned down. Leanna lit them hurriedly, then cleared her throat. Usually there was quite a bit more pageantry involved, but the essentials were all in order. “Have you any vows you’d like to speak?”

The two women stared blankly at her, then at each other. “We didn’t think of those, either.”

“It’s alright,” Leanna said hurriedly. “It’s traditional, but not necessary.”

“No, I want to vow something!” said the Arlessa’s betrothed—bother, Leanna couldn’t remember her name, though she’d seen her about town before. “Let me think!”

But before she—Yvette? Yvonne?—could come to any conclusions, the Arlessa took her by the hands. “I vow to honor and protect you, to...to love you for all time, and…”

“Slay any enormous fuck-off dragons that might give you trouble,” she suggested.

“Yes, that, and also, spend some time in that garden you worked so hard on—”

“I vow all that, and also to take care of any paperwork that you don’t want to do—”

“—and make sure you don’t sleep through breakfast because I know you like it when everyone’s together—”

“—and not to loom, not on purpose anyway—”

“—and not to be difficult for no reason.” The Arlessa looked at Leanna. “Is that suitable?”

Leanna realized she was being addressed. “Yes, it will serve,” she coughed. “You may exchange rings.”

“Wait, sorry, I’m confused,” said the Arlessa’s betrothed. “I thought rings were exchanged at the proposal, not the wedding?”

“I thought so, too,” the Arlessa said. “Should we find another set? Is the jeweler’s open?”

“Not necessary!” squeaked Revered Mother Leanna. “The Maker blesses your union! May your days be long and fruitful! You may kiss.”

They kissed. A particularly emotional sister, who loved weddings and always cried at them, ran to go ring the bells before it was too late.

“That’s it, then?” said the Arlessa when they broke apart and the wedding bells were ringing. “We’re married? Just like that?”

“Yes, you’re married,” said Leanna. The whole affair had taken less than ten minutes, and she was wondering whether she might be able to go back to bed for another hour or two.

“Well, good,” said Yvonne or Yvette or whatever her name was, smugly putting her arm around her new wife’s shoulders. “We should do it again sometime. Now we’d better get home; we haven’t slept in a while.”

Leanna wished the newlyweds the best of luck and all the joy in the world, and went gratefully back to bed.

—

They ambled back to Vigil’s Keep late in the afternoon, hand in hand and thinking of more vows to make for the next time. They were met at the gate by a stern—and rather matronly-looking, with the particular set of his crossed arms—Nathaniel Howe.

“Commander,” he said tersely. “You were missed today, I’m afraid. Lord Guy was here around noon, expecting a meeting and throwing his weight around mightily when he found you absent.”

“Oh,” said Loriel, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Sorry, I forgot completely. I’ll write him an apology later tonight. We were out getting married.”

“It’s fine, I handled it,” said Nathaniel, “Only he’ll be back next week wanting—you were out getting what?”

Yvanne showed him the ring. “It grants protection from fire, too.”

He stood dumbstruck, then started grinning. “I—well—congratulations!”

“_ Please _don’t make a big deal out of it,” Loriel urged. “It was spur of the moment, more of a formality than anything.”

Nathaniel nodded very seriously and promised not to make a big deal of it. Only he made the mistake of telling Anders, who told the whole Keep, who subsequently proceeded to make a big deal out of it.

The ambush lay in store in the Great Hall, during what was normally the dinner hour. Anders was there, tapping his foot. “I cannot believe,” he said, at the sight of them, “that I would be betrayed in this way, by my two favoritest mages in the world. I trusted you, and I am hurt so deeply.”

Loriel almost went into a panic, and started mentally backtracking through every interaction she’d recently had with Anders and whether any of them might be construed as a betrayal. She started mentally composing an all-purpose apology, but Yvanne was already laughing and telling him to fuck off. It dawned on her in stages what was happening.

“You really didn’t think I’d let you get out of this without a wedding reception, did you?” he said seriously.

They were being thrown a party.

She wasn’t sure who’d put this together—Maker knew it wasn’t all _ Anders; _perhaps Garavel?—or how they’d managed it so quickly, but somehow the whole Keep was in on it. Wine flowed, as well as other stronger things, and all the residents of the Keep who were so much as passing fair at a musical instrument cobbled together a makeshift minstrel troupe. 

Apparently Velanna knew how to play the flute. She was pretty good at it, too. Anders was _ terrible _on the lute, but it wasn’t stopping him. It didn’t take very long at all for Oghren to start a long and bawdy wedding night song about a nug and a bronto, and apparently Sigrun knew it, too, and it had a structure simple enough that soon enough more than half of everyone present was singing on it, and by then Loriel had drunk enough wine that she wasn’t embarrassed by any of it.

What she remembered most clearly was dancing with Yvanne. They’d never danced together before, and they were awful at it, and everyone was watching and laughing and cheering. How strange a thought, that they had never danced together—surely they must have tried it at some point? But no, there’d been no dancing at the Circle, and during the Blight they’d always been staring over each other’s shoulders, and then during the celebration at Denerim it had all been too heavy, despite the joy of victory, and after that, what with one thing or another…

But she would always remember this dance. Yvanne flushed and happy and looking completely ridiculous, looking at her and at nothing else. She would remember that for a long time, even when she had occasion to remember little else.

Shortly after that someone—probably Oghren, but maybe Anders—persuaded her to try the aqua magus, and her recollection of the evening grew rather fuzzy. What she did remember was that close to midnight Anders declared that it was time for the honored tradition of _ the bedding, _and before Loriel could even begin to wonder what that was, they were being lifted bodily by the crowd and spirited away. Dozens of hands carried them through the Keep, up the stairs and to the Commander’s bedchamber, where they were dumped upon their bed amidst a great deal of hooting and hollering. Then the crowd, shouting helpful suggestions, were ushered out, until finally the door was shut and they were alone on their wedding night.

They were far too drunk to do anything but struggle under the covers and fall right asleep, and nothing went wrong for nearly an entire month.


	8. Chapter 8

The young man arrived unassumingly, much like all the rest. 

The Ferelden Wardens had been so depleted since the Fifth Blight, that if any good had come of the siege, it was that the Wardens’ fame was growing. Recruits were flowing in, from Amaranthine and beyond, from as far as Gwaren. Men and women from every walk of life came to pledge their lives to vigilance.

Yvanne had placed herself in charge of recruitment. She appreciated the bitter irony of it, but the importance of that paled in comparison to what she would do as the self-appointed head of Warden recruitment. She could tell people what they were getting themselves into—exactly what would happen during the Joining, what would happen if they got unlucky, what their approximate chances of surviving was. She could describe the life they would have afterwards—the dreams, the shortened lifespan, that constant feeling that  _ something  _ was scratching at the back of their heads. 

Yvanne had the sense that she wasn’t supposed to tell civilians these things, that they were secrets. But she figured that if the First Warden wanted to come and make it her problem, she’d deal with him then, and not before.

Some of those that came turned away and went home when they understood what they would be signing up for. But, most stayed.

She set herself up in the Great Hall, sitting behind an oaken desk she’d had dragged into the space where the Arl’s throne had once stood. There she met with each recruit personally, recording their names and professions and where they had come from. This kind of administrative work should have been Garavel’s—he was the new Seneschal, after all—but somehow Yvanne could never get used to him. He looked so young. He didn’t know the system she and Varel had worked out together. It was easier to just do it herself.

So when the broad-shouldered young man came forward to meet with the Warden-Lieutenant, at first he seemed completely unremarkable.

“Name?” she asked, not quite looking up.

“Rolan.”

“Place of birth?”

“Jader.”

“Previous occupation?”

“Templar.”

The scratching of Yvanne’s quill ceased abruptly, blotting the sheet she was writing on. Her breath caught. Rolan only continued to smile blithely.

She lifted the pen, scattering sand over the blot.

“I don’t think so,” she said icily, not looking at him.

His light brows drew together in confusion. “I swear, ser, it’s the truth. I served in—”

“I’m not accusing you of lying,” she corrected. “I’m denying your petition to join the Grey Wardens.”

At first he stared at her, uncomprehending. “What?!” He slammed his hands on the table, rattling it. She suppressed the flinch. “But the Wardens need skilled warriors! I’ve trained in arms and armor, I understand discipline, I’m an able warrior. How can you turn me away?”

“Like this.” She took the parchment on which she’d written his name, crumpled it up, and incinerated it. She enjoyed his obvious fear as he startled backwards, eyes wide. She brushed the charred remains off her desk. “I wish you a pleasant journey home to Jader.”

He struggled to master himself. “Can’t I at least know why?”

“Certainly.” She smiled. “Many of the highest-ranking and most valued of our Ferelden Wardens are mages. I cannot ask them to tolerate your presence, given your abilities and your prior occupation.”

“Is that what you’re concerned about?” His lip actually trembled. Pathetic. “It isn’t like that at all. I’m not here as a Templar. I’m not a Templar at all anymore! I came here because I wanted to do something noble with my life, something heroic.”

“Oh, I see. You didn’t finding standing over helpless imprisoned children with a sword too rewarding? Wanted something a little more personally fulfilling, did you?”

He sputtered. “This is completely against—this isn’t—I thought the Grey Wardens took anyone. I thought you were desperate for recruits.”

_ Not that desperate,  _ she thought acidly. His raised voice and the small fireball she had just created were drawing attention. Some of the Vigil’s soldiers had their hands on their weapons, watching the situation carefully. Yvanne gestured for them to hold, but Rolan was still talking.

“I thought anyone could come here and turn over a new leaf. You shouldn’t be able to hold my past against me.”

“Maybe not,” she said cheerfully, “but I am. Good day,  _ ser. _ ”

He stood there gaping. Then he straightened, his jaw twitching. “You don’t have the  _ authority _ to turn me away.”

“Oh? How interesting,” Yvanne said, disinterestedly. She demonstratively paged through some of the documents on the desk, not looking at him. “And here I thought I was the ranking recruitment officer.”

“ _ You _ aren’t the Warden-Commander.”

Yvanne’s smile disappeared.

“ _ You’re  _ not the one who slew the Archdemon and lived.”

She felt her eyebrow twitch.

“ _ She’s  _ an elf; I know that much.”

She vividly imagined what it would be like to fill this fool with lightning.

“I want to talk to  _ her _ .”

“You do, do you?” Yvanne said, clasping her hands on the desk in front of her. “I’m afraid the Warden-Commander is very busy, and unfortunately can’t take time out of her day to talk to every fool that demands her attention.”

“Fine, then.” Rolan crossed his arms. “I’ll wait.”

Yvanne’s fingers tightened over her knuckles. “You’ll what?”

“I’ll wait,” he said. “I’ll camp outside the walls until she has time to see me. Every day I’ll come in here and ask to join the Wardens and every day I’ll ask to see the Commander until I get a no directly from her lips. Then I’ll leave. But not before.”

She could tell he meant it, too. She’d have to deal with him every single day until he finally got the rejection from the person he wanted, and every one of those days was another day that a Templar was within smiting distance of her. Within smiting distance of Loriel. And Anders. And Velanna. Yvanne felt a flare of the old hatred, not in her heart, but somewhere in her gut, that pool of brewing roiling viscous bile that for so long had laid quiescent. 

She needed to get rid of him.

“Fine,” she snapped. “If you are so desperate to be turned away by the Warden-Commander herself, I’ll oblige you. This way. Garavel, tell anyone still outside to wait. I’ll only be a few minutes.”

She rose from the high-backed wooden chair, so abruptly that its legs scraped horribly on the stone floor, and marched off towards Loriel’s office. She would end this quickly and never deal with this cockroach again. He followed her dutifully through the halls, at least doing her the service of remaining silent.

She banged on the Commander’s office doors, waiting hardly a second before barging in. Loriel startled, looking up from sheets of parchment covered in glyph diagrams and arcane symbols beyond Yvanne’s comprehension. Her brow crumpled when she saw her and she opened her mouth to say something before catching sight of Rolan.

“Yes?” she said smoothly, her puzzled expression schooling into glasslike neutrality. “How can I be of assistance?”

Before Yvanne could say anything, Rolan dropped to one knee, bowing his head. “I wish only to pledge my life in service to the Grey Wardens. I wish to protect the innocent, to fight the darkness, to be the shield that stands before the night. I would give my life to it.”

Loriel allowed a drop of confusion to enter her expression. “I see. And is there a problem?”

“I’ll tell you what the problem is,” Yvanne said, dripping with every bit of her old venom. “This man is a Templar.”

Loriel’s expression did not so much as twitch. “Is that true?”

Rolan hesitated. “I  _ was  _ a Templar,” he said, “in my old life. But no longer. I seek a different path.”

“I see.” Loriel laced her fingers together in front of her and looked down at them.

“Oh, come on!” Yvanne burst out. “Surely you can’t possibly—”

“Yvanne,” Loriel cut her off. “ _ Please.”  _ Yvanne caught the tight, desperate plea in her eye. She bit her tongue. Rolan was still kneeling.

“You understand,” Loriel said finally, leaning forward, “that the Joining is often fatal.”

“I do.”

“And you understand that should you live, I will be your Commander. Warden Amell, as Warden-Lieutenant, would also be your ranking officer.”

“I do.”

“You realize I am a mage. As is she.”

“I do, ser.”

“As well as several other Wardens that have my complete trust. Free mages, whose actions you may not always agree with.”

“Yes, ser.”

“You aren’t uncomfortable with that?”

“No, ser.”

She pierced him with that deep inky gaze of hers. “Knowing that any disloyalty, any failure to comply with orders—any intentional disruptions of the Wardens under my protection—may mean that your life is forfeit?”

“Yes, ser.”

“You would abide by the oaths and customs and bounds of the Grey Wardens? You would sacrifice yourself, if need be?”

He had been nodding along, and now his head bobbed up and down like a clucking chicken. “I would. Ser. I so swear it by the Maker.”

She kept silent a while again. Then she sighed. “Very well. If you wish it, you will be Joined along with the others at the end of Harvestmere. You may report to the recruit barracks.”

He thanked her, and bowed his head again, and thanked her another time, and exited the room practically backwards, and didn’t even ask where the recruit barracks were. 

Yvanne waited until the sound of his footsteps was well out of earshot, then slammed the door so hard the hinges rattled. 

“What the hell was  _ that _ !” she shouted. 

Loriel noticed that the cap was off the inkwell, and carefully replaced it.

“That’s a fucking  _ Templar,  _ you realize?”

Loriel started cleaning the tip of the quill pen she’d been using, examining the tip as though to check whether it needed sharpening.

“I mean,  _ Andraste’s bleeding tits _ ! We’ve spent how long trying to get away from these bastards, and you’re inviting one of them over for tea and biscuits? To stay in my Keep? To be part of our Wardens?” 

Loriel put down the quill and started organizing the sheets of parchment littering her desk.

“I don’t understand! Have you lost your mind? Are you possessed by some demon of discord and confusion? Just what are you playing at?!”

Loriel left the parchments in three neat stacks on the desk, placing the quill and inkwell in their proper places.

“I can’t believe you’d do this to me! To all the Warden mages! To  _ us. _ ”

Her voice caught. She collapsed into a nearby chair, exhausted. “I— I just—” She pinched the bridge of her nose.

“Finished?”

“Yes,” Yvanne said morosely.

Loriel rose and stood in front of Yvanne’s chair, where she sat hunched and twisted. She bit her lip, rubbing the knucklebone of her thumb.

“I understand how you feel,” she said carefully. “I’m not entirely comfortable with it either, but my position is—” She hesitated. “—precarious. My people value me more than they fear me, but if I started to behave politically like a mage and not a Warden, that might change. I need to be seen as neutral. The Wardens _ are _ meant to be a clean slate. A chance to atone. If I deny that chance to a Templar, how does that make me look? Besides, wouldn’t you rather he be a Warden than a Templar?”

“I’d rather he be  _ dead. _ ” 

“We don’t get to choose that.” 

“Since when?” Yvanne demanded. “We’ve killed  _ lots  _ of people. Duncan killed Jory, just for being afraid. Why shouldn’t I kill Rolan now?”

Loriel looked evenly at her. “You won’t do that.”

“No,” she said savagely. “But I ought to.”

“Oh, Yvanne.” Loriel took her cold dry hands in hers. “How long are we supposed to stay afraid?”

“That’s not—” Yvanne sputtered, pulling her hands away and standing. “It’s not  _ about  _ that.”

How she hated when Loriel turned those big sad eyes on her. She held her elbows close to her body, looking small. “Isn’t it?”

“It isn’t about who he  _ is.  _ It’s about what he can do.” Yvanne flashed back to every smiting bolt she’d ever felt, to the warehouse, how they’d barely survived...

“If we need to fear that man because of what he can do, then why shouldn’t  _ everyone _ fear us for what _ we  _ can do?”

“Maybe they  _ should _ fear us,” Yvanne said darkly. 

“You don’t mean that.”

“You don’t know what I mean.”

“I do know.”

Yvanne said nothing.

“Look,” said Loriel, sighing again, “we aren’t Circle mages anymore. If we’re going to live— _ really _ live—we’re going to have to accept that.”

“What are you talking about?” It came out sharper than she meant it to.

She threw her hands wide. “I mean, we aren’t prisoners anymore! And that man isn’t our jailer. Don’t you understand? We’re out of the tower. We have to knock down the walls or we’ll never be able to live.”

“I thought we  _ were  _ living. I was. Weren’t you?” Yvanne swiped her thumb over the ring on her finger.

“I’m—” Loriel faltered. “I’m doing my best. It isn’t easy.”

A steady gaze. “You didn’t tell me.”  _ But I knew,  _ Yvanne thought.  _ I knew, but I thought, with enough time... _

“Because I don’t think it’s any easier for you.” She took a breath. “If I choose to be a frightened Circle mage rather than the Warden-Commander, I’ll never escape. Neither of us will. We’ll always be looking over our shoulders, waiting to be caught. If we can’t move past that, we’re doomed.”

“You can’t make that choice for me.”

Loriel looked down. “Maybe not. I’m sorry. But I stand by my decision.”

“I…” Yvanne sighed. “Maybe you have a point. But I might need some time.”

“Alright.” They stood not quite looking at each other. Yvanne’s fingernails dug into her palm. Loriel fiddled with her wedding ring until it chafed. “I love you,” she added. 

“I love you, too. But sometimes I don’t understand you at all.”

A faint smile. “Isn’t that the joy of it?”

Yvanne went to her and kissed her lightly, to show that she wasn’t angry, although she was, and left the office. And Loriel was left alone to sit and idly review her diagrams and consider all that had been said and done.

She hadn’t  _ lied,  _ exactly. It was true, all that she’d said. She had pinned her life, and Yvanne’s life, and so many other lives, to the Grey Wardens. If she had done that, it had to mean something. She had to  _ make _ it mean something. Otherwise she was a monster, wasn’t she? 

And it  _ was  _ true, that they had to stop being afraid. That  _ was  _ why she’d done it.

But really...

She’d done it because she’d seen a Templar kneeling before her, and known that his life was in her hands. Known that she could kill him, if she wanted to. Yes, her position was precarious, but not _that_ precarious. Yvanne was right about one thing: Duncan had killed recruits. At least one that she knew of, for such a petty reason, and there were probably more. And who was Duncan, compared to the Hero of Ferelden, the most famous Warden-Commander in centuries? Who would have stopped her? Who would have breathed a word against her?

He’d been at her mercy, and it had felt so good.

It had shocked her, just how good. All these years she’d been a little mouse, afraid for so long that she had not realized what it had been to  _ not  _ be afraid. She’d feared her parents’ anger, she’d feared the shemlen outside the alienage, and she’d feared the Templars, always the  _ Templars.  _ It had made her into what she was, the fear. Now that it was gone, its absence was intoxicating. She wanted more of it, that un-fear. The way she felt watching an ogre barrelling down at her and knowing it would not touch her, the way she felt consorting with darkspawn and knowing she had the upper hand—that was how watching Rolan kneel before her felt.

Yes, she was ashamed, but it was a perfunctory sort of shame. She knew she  _ ought _ to feel it, anyway. Ashamed enough that she did not want to tell Yvanne, did not want her to know. Yvanne thought her better than she was, and she loved her for it. Maybe she needed someone to see the best in her—else all the worst in her would come up and choke her to death. So she felt just enough shame for that. But only just.

How pathetic it would have been to send him away. To let him  _ win.  _ To admit that even now—as Arlessa and Commander and blood mage and the greatest necromancer that had lived in centuries—she was still afraid of a man for the symbol on his armor.

No. She was done. The Templar could stay if he wanted. and maybe he’d die, and maybe he wouldn’t. And maybe he would be a good and loyal Warden and he would do good things with his life, and that would be good. 

And then again, maybe he wouldn’t. And Loriel would boil his blood inside his veins, and that would also be good. But she would never be afraid again.

Not ever.

—

“Did I hear correctly? There’s a  _ Templar  _ among the recruits?”

“Yes,” Yvanne said moodily. “You heard correctly.”

Anders shook his head. “Are you sure? It could be that I’m having spontaneous massive bleeding in the brain.”

“I could give you a once-over, I guess,” she joked weakly.

“You have to talk to her.”

“I already did.”

“Well, can you do it again?” he demanded.

“I could, if I wanted to invite additional strife into my marriage.” She snorted. “But I won’t.”

He rounded on her. “You’re going to allow a Templar into the Wardens to avoid a little marital strife?”

“Step off,” she snapped. “I’m not happy about it, either.”

Anders fumed. “You know this is obviously an attempt by the Chantry to spy on us. I’m sure of it. It wasn’t as though they were going to stand for this many free mages in the Wardens. It was bound to happen.”

“Right, well, I don’t know about all that—”

“What, you think I’m being paranoid?” Anders demanded.

“No? I just meant—”

“And what about Justice? You think this Templar isn’t going to notice a possessed corpse walking around?”

Yvanne threw her hands up. “I don’t know! Half the time, I have no idea what Loriel’s thinking. But she’s always come through before, even when I didn’t understand what she was doing or why.”

“Yeah, well,” Anders said darkly, “You weren’t at Drake’s Fall.”

Yvanne’s hands tightened on the bannister. “Don’t remind me.” 

“No, I just meant…you didn’t see her.”

She had, though. She thought about telling him. She’d told Loriel, who claimed it hadn’t bothered her, that she had nothing to hide, but she’d told nobody else. Even thinking about it gave her an unpleasant sinking feeling in her stomach, like she was doing something shameful that needed to be hidden.

“What, exactly, happened at Drake’s Fall?” she asked instead.

He raised an eyebrow. “She didn’t tell you?”

“She did. She told me everything,” Yvanne said, more defensively than she meant.

“So you know you she made a deal with it,” said Anders. “That darkspawn, the Architect.”

“Yes, I do.” Yvanne drew herself up. “And what about it?”

Anders shook his head, staring off like he was struggling to understand. “She talked to it like...I don’t know, like it was a colleague! An old friend, or something!”

“Doesn’t shock me. She’s always been diplomatic.” Her expression darkened. “Even to the worst monsters.”

“You don’t understand,” Anders insisted. “You didn’t see her. It was like she was a completely different person.”

“You don’t know her like I know her,” Yvanne said smoothly, but inside a little voice wailed,  _ She was, she was different! Who was that woman I saw? I didn’t know her. _

“I s’pose I don’t,” Anders muttered. “But it was bad. I mean, I’m not one to judge, personally—Loriel’s a big girl, hey? She can wheel and deal with ancient darkspawn magisters all she wants, no skin off my nose. But Sigrun and Justice didn’t feel that way.”

Alarm bells rang. “What do you mean?”

“I mean they  _ really  _ didn’t feel that way. I almost thought we’d end up fighting to the death about it.”

Loriel had vaguely mentioned their disapproval. Yvanne had even seen part of the argument, in a fashion. But to the death?

Anders was still talking. “It didn’t come to that, thank the Maker. She talked them both down. But for a second there I really thought I’d have to...anyway, it didn’t come to that.”

Yvanne couldn’t help but notice that Anders had failed to mention who he would have sided with, if it had come to that.

But it hadn’t.

“Nothing would have happened,” _ _ Yvanne said, less certainly than she would have liked. “They wouldn’t. She’s their commander. Their friend.”

“She  _ was _ , anyway.” He paused. “Justice probably doesn’t have any hard feelings. You know how he is. Doesn’t really hold grudges. Funny, isn’t it? A spirit of Justice that doesn’t hold grudges?”

“Right. Funny. Ha, ha.” Yvanne had probably never pronounced a hollower laugh.

“In that case, we should figure something out for Justice before the Chantry’s little lapdog goes crying all the way to a Revered Mother about the revenants the big scary mage commander is hiding in her tower of horrors.”

“Probably,” Yvanne muttered, pushing past him.

—

Yvanne roiled deep in one of the worst moods of her life.

She’d been in a lot of bad moods in her life, but never this particular awful combination of contradictory feelings that overlapped and bled into each other like oil swirling upon water. It was giving her a headache. Every time she tried to be angry at Loriel, she felt guilty. And every time she felt guilty, she felt self-righteous at the very idea that she had anything to feel guilty for when she was so obviously in the right. And every time she felt self-righteous, she felt pathetic. Why did she possibly need to be so defensive here in her castle where she and her wife were the rulers?

She and her wife, she thought. Who’d have ever thought such a thing? Who could have ever imagined? 

And yet still here she was, roving through her castle like a caged tiger, heartbroken and pulsating like a poisoned vein of lyrium.

She didn’t understand, she just didn’t understand. What Loriel had said made  _ sense.  _ They  _ did  _ need to let go of their past, fully become Wardens and not mere Circle mages. It all made perfect sense and Yvanne still didn’t understand. She thought again of the strange cold woman she had seen in her visions, who she recognized but did not quite know, who was not  _ her  _ Loriel. If only she hadn’t looked, she could have brushed off Anders’ words like so much goosefeather down. But as it was….

She found herself, almost against her wishes, making her way to the new recruits’ barracks.

When she got there, a few of the recruits, two human women and an elven man, were playing dice and chatting about something. Yvanne almost barked at them to get back to their duties before realizing that it was the middle of the night, it wasn’t their patrol, and they didn’t currently have any duties.

“Have you seen Rolan?” she asked instead as they all hurriedly rose to salute her. They didn’t know. He’d gone out less than an hour ago. He hadn’t said where he was going.

What was he playing at? Did he think she would not notice? Did he think her  _ so  _ stupid? She couldn’t stand for that.

She thanked the recruits and turned on her heel. It was late and dark and the lit sconces provided only barely enough light. She could have lit a magelight, but didn’t. This wasn’t a mood to be lit.

The Templar was not in the kitchen. He was not in the entrance hall. He was not in the courtyard.

Finally she found him, in the little chapel at the edge of the Keep. She hadn’t quite finished renovations here yet.

He jerked as she approached, as though startled out of deep prayer.

“Hello, Rolan,” she said, sliding into the pew beside him. She smiled broadly and clasped him on the shoulder.

“Good evening, Warden-Lieutenant,” he said, although it was well past evening. “Do you need me for anything—ser?” He remembered just in time.

“Are you a pious man, Rolan?” Yvanne asked, ignoring the question.

“I like to think so, ser.”

“One would have to be quite pious to be in the chapel this late at night, wouldn’t you say?”

“I enjoy the quiet,” he said, nervous. “It’s peaceful.”

Her grip on his shoulder tightened. “Is this piety why you joined the Templars, Rolan? Did you feel it was your duty?” 

“I...suppose so, ser.” His voice wavered. Only slightly, but it did. Good. 

Several times he appeared to try to speak, but every time he thought better of it. “I think I’d like to return to the barracks, ser. It’s late.”

She released him. “Yes, so it is.”

He rose and made for the exit, made to escape. 

“Wait a moment, Rolan,” she said softly. “That’s an order.”

He stopped and turned around, his head lowered. “Ser?”

“I just wanted to make sure we both knew exactly where we stand,” she said. “After all that unpleasantness from before.”

“Yes, ser.” He bowed his head in contrition. “I’m sorry for how I behaved before. I hope we can put that behind us.”

She regarded him. “You’re very good at being deferent, Rolan. I suppose they taught you that in the Order.”

“Yes, ser.”

“But it won’t help.”

He straightened anxiously. “Ser?”

“I don’t know why the  _ fuck  _ you’re here,” she hissed, advancing. 

“I explained—”

“Shut up. You know, one of my Wardens thinks you’re a Chantry spy here to report on the Commander’s activities. What do you think of that, Rolan?”

“I—”

“I  _ said,  _ shut up!” 

He tried to speak, but whatever he had meant to say, he suddenly found his magically tongue leaden in his mouth. 

She scrutinized him. “I don’t think you’re a Chantry spy, Rolan. You should find that encouraging. If I thought you were a spy, you’d already be dead. But lucky for you, I don’t think that. I think you’re probably telling the truth. I think you really believe all that garbage about a second chance.”

He gave a series of tiny, desperate nods.

“But it doesn’t matter what you  _ fucking  _ believe. While you are here you are a danger to me and mine. So mark my words, Ser Templar—”

He tried to take a step back. He moved quickly enough that it looked to her like an attempt to get away. A wordless gesture sent him slamming backwards against the stone walls, not enough to injure, but enough to hurt. 

“Did I  _ say  _ you were dismissed, Ser Templar? We were having a conversation.”

She held him pinned against the wall with the force spell, his feet several inches off the ground.

“I suggest you stay still,” she said. “If I had to paralyze you in order to finish our conversation, I might accidentally stop your lungs.”

He gave the fainest suggestion of a nod, sweat pouring from his temples.

She strolled up. He was a big man, round-shouldered and burly, and she had to lift her chin to look him in the eye. “The Warden-Commander may have granted you permission to remain here. And I will not go against her decision. If you wish to stay, then by all means, stay. But let me make something perfectly clear.” She bared her teeth. “If you give me so much as a hint that any of your loyalty to the Order remains, I will kill you. The Commander could kill you painlessly, easily, with barely a thought, but I am not her equal. If I decide to kill you, I may well get sloppy. It may take you many minutes to die. And what long minutes they will be. If you give me so much as a hint, a breath, an inkling of a suggestion, that you are more trouble to my people than trouble to the Commander’s reputation, you will die, and no one will question your death, and that will be that. If, of course, you decide to stay. Do you understand, Ser Templar?”

She released her hold on him just enough to let him nod. Tears sprung to his eyes. They were a watery blue. He was terrified of her.

It suddenly occurred to Yvanne that this boy was probably younger than she was.

She stepped back, a ringing in her ears. He didn’t move. Of course not, he wouldn’t dare. “You—You may go,” she said.

He fled before her fury like a mouse before a lion.

She could have killed him, Yvanne realized. She could have killed him right then, and nobody would have stopped her. Not that she’d never killed anybody before, but never anybody helpless. And he  _ had _ been helpless. 

Shame filled her, hot and acrid. She shouldn’t have come here. Loriel had been right about everything. 

Yvanne half-hoped her threat had worked just so she wouldn’t have to see anybody so afraid of her again. And hoped that he’d live, if he stayed, so that she’d have a chance to make up for it, somehow. No light, save from the candles, filled the chapel, and that was just as well. She felt sick and ugly.

She went to the courtyard, taking deep gulps of night air. Her lungs hurt. She drew water from the well, cold clear water, splashed it on her face, then stood gripping the cistern until her heart slowed. She lowered herself to the ground, her back against the stone, looking up at the stars.

Maybe she’d never fully escape the Tower. Maybe a part of her heart was still locked in it. Maybe she’d spend her whole life still trying to escape it. 

But she had to try.

She sighed and stood up to go back inside and to bed. At least now she could stop being angry with Loriel. She hated being angry with Loriel. 

Yes, she’d been right. Time to move on. Time to live.

—

Rolan lived through his Joining. Yvanne lived to be glad of it, then lived to regret it.


	9. Chapter 9

“Things sure have changed.” 

At first Yvanne wasn’t even sure if Anders had meant that comment for her or for the birds. They’d been standing on the same parapet, not talking to each other, for an uncomfortably long time.

There were rather a lot of things she wanted to say to him. “Yeah,” she said instead.

By now the Keep was well on its way to being rebuilt, although there would be months to go before it was anything like its former glory. Still, it felt bigger now than before. The new recruits had swelled the Order’s ranks, and while before Yvanne had known everyone’s name and where they’d come from, these days she could barely keep track of who was who.

Anders was staring off into the cold afternoon sky. He looked wistful, with the faintest hints of fury buried deep beneath. Mostly he looked a bit tired. 

She made an attempt: “Bit of a far toss from back when it was just a couple of childhood friends charging around the countryside, fresh out of the Tower."

He acquired a ghost of smile. “And Oghren.”

She snorted. “Yeah. And Oghren.”

“And the Seneschal.”

Unbidden tears came to her eyes. She hadn’t expected to miss the old man this much. “And the Seneschal,” she agreed, throat tight..

He nudged her. “Getting sentimental on me, are you?”

Startled out of her rising grief, she laughed. “Oh, shut up.” She shoved him on the upper arm, and he made a big show of pretending to almost fall off the parapet, pinwheeling his arms.

Suddenly the tension between them that had persisted in the past weeks evaporated, and it was almost like old times. They reminisced, joking and trading barbs. For a blessed portion of an hour, the fact that things were different now didn’t seem so tragic.

But all things ended.

He chuckled. “I remember when there were so few of us we had to do everything ourselves.”

Yvanne smiled, watery. “And having Nate join up was this big thing, let alone Sigrun and Velanna. Maker, it felt like such a risk. I mean, what if we didn’t get along?”

They both laughed, but not very hard this time, and not for long.

“Do you even know all the recruits names anymore?” he said.

“I used to,” she said wistfully. After the incident with Rolan, she had removed herself as head of recruitment. She didn’t trust herself with that job anymore. “I still know most of them, I think.”

He paused, then, “Do you know those three fellows who have been hanging around Rolan lately?”

“Oh, hm.” She stiffened a bit. Rolan had kept his distance from her and she had been too ashamed of herself to mind what he did. But it was still her job to know. “One of them’s named Conner, I think. He’s local. Used to be a farrier. The ginger’s an ex-mercenary from Starkhaven, William or something like that.”

“The big guy. Yeah. And the wiry fellow with the accent?”

“I think he’s originally from Nevarra. I can’t remember his name. Starts with an A.”

“You don’t think there’s anything funny about them?”

“No. Why would I?”

He paused. “They’ve been talking a lot, the four of them.”

“So they’re friends. Good for them,” she said, annoyed. “So what?”

“They’ve been talking  _ privately.” _

“If they’ve been talking privately, how would you know about it?” 

“Never mind,” he muttered. “I’m just saying it’s suspicious, is all.”

She quirked an eyebrow. “It’s suspicious that four men are friends?”

“It’s not just that they’re friends, alright?” he snapped. “I think they’ve been keeping an eye on me. Lately no matter where I go, it seems like one of them’s there, too.”

“So you think they’re what, spying on you?”

“Not just me!” He leaned in closer, looking around as though someone might be listening in. “I think they know about Justice. I heard them talking once, and ever since then they’ve been more careful.”

“That’s troubling,” Yvanne agreed. “If true. But we’re working on it."

"Working on it? They're still _here, _though."

"What am I supposed to do? Throw them out of the Wardens on the vague suspicion that they might know about the possessed corpse we keep on staff?” Even if she’d wanted to, and a large part of her did, Loriel wouldn’t have agreed. 

“Look, can you at least rotate me off patrol with those guys? I don’t know who Rolan’s bribing to keep getting assigned to my squads, but I’m sick of it.”

She shrugged. “Sure, fine. If it’ll make you feel better, I guess.”

“Thanks.” There was an awkward silence. “But you don’t believe me.”

The tension was back in full force.

“I don’t know,” she said eventually.

“I knew it. You think I’m crazy.”

“I never said that.”

“But you were thinking it."

She threw her hands up. “Look, I’m sick of being paranoid. I’m tired of it, alright, Anders? I’m tired! I don’t want to be watching my back all the time, afraid that someone is finally going to get me if I let my hackles down for even a second. I mean—Andraste, we’re not Circle mages anymore, we’re Wardens! Shouldn’t we act like it? Shouldn’t we stop being afraid?

“Sounds peachy,” he said acidly. “I’ll just get right on that, shall I?”

She set her jaw and looked away.

“Can't you talk to Loriel about this?”

“Talk to her yourself," Yvanne said stiffly. "You know where her office is.”

“She’s hardly ever in there anymore," Anders protested. "You don’t get it. She doesn’t listen to us. It’s like talking to an extremely polite brick wall. She smiles and agrees to everything and then it’s like she doesn’t even remember the conversation.”

“She’s got a lot on her mind."

“Yeah, well, we all have a lot on our minds. But she listens to you.” 

“What exactly do you want me to tell her? That four men are friends? Don’t be ridiculous.”

“You know that’s not what—”

“No,” she said, turning around. “I’m done talking about this. I don’t always understand Loriel’s decisions, but I support her, always and completely. So you can go ahead and quit using me to try and get to her. Talk to her yourself. Or don’t. But leave me out of it.”

“Fine,” Anders said. He could have frozen Kinloch Lake with the ice in that  _ fine.  _ “Things really have changed, huh? I remember when you gave a damn about something besides yourself and your own comfort.”

Yvanne snorted. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

“I remember when you actually bothered to stick your neck out for other people," he went on, yanking her by the shoulder so that she was obliged to face him. The damn beanpole had several inches on her. They glared at each other. 

"The Yvanne I used to know would never have put up with this. She would have shouted. She would have been swinging. She would have made damn sure that the whole world knew that she wasn’t content."

“Yeah, well,” she said, drawing in on herself. “The Yvanne you used to know got the shit beaten out of her every other week. And what did she ever accomplish?”

“Fine, whatever." He gave a bitter snort, crossed his arms and went back to staring out at the grey landscape. “Didn’t realize you were giving up on  _ all  _ your principles.”

“Principles!” she said, scornful. “Principles! Since when have I ever claimed to have principles? I used to be an angry, miserable, vicious child, and now that I’m not that child anymore, you want to get mad at me? Real fine of you to get on your high horse about  _ principles  _ at me when you’ve spent _ your  _ whole life being the exact same selfish, careless asshole that I used to be.”

“Maybe I’ve also changed. Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think you do,” he said. “I wonder what Justice would think about that. You remember Justice? Our good friend, the literal embodiment of justice, who you seem perfectly willing to throw under the wagon?”

“Is that what this is about?” A new flare of anger rose up in the pit of her gut. She cared about the spirit. “I've been meaning to talk to you about him. You really need to stop feeding his... _ complex.  _ He’s not an embodiment of justice, he’s a person. A person uniquely bad at existing in this world, and you’re not making it any easier for him.  _ Neither  _ of you are good for each other.”

He gave her a brief, close-lipped smile. “You know, given the company you chose to keep, I would think that you would be the last person to lecture anybody about who’s good for who.”

It took her a moment to figure out what he was talking about. And suddenly her hot, unhappy anger purified and crystallized into a clear, cold, unbothered pit of pure ice.

“You don’t know a fucking thing you’re talking about,” she said smoothly. “And if you’re going to say things like that, you may as well not speak to me at all."

As she stalked away, she regretted it, a little. Anders was an old friend, and you couldn’t exactly replace those, even if he did say phenomenally stupid, ignorant, wrong things some times.

But their friendship had weathered worse. It would probably weather this.

—

The door to the Commander’s office slammed open.

“I have some concerns.”

Loriel slowly closed her book with a sigh. She was getting rather tired of having her office barged into. Maybe she ought to spend more time in her lab, which nobody knew about except Yvanne. “Hello, Anders.”

“Don’t you ‘Hello, Anders’ me, this is serious!”

“Yes, I can see that,” she said.

“I don’t know,” he said acidly. “ _ Can  _ you?”

“I’m listening very carefully to you, Anders.” She folded her hands on the desk. “What’s this about?”

“I’m talking about how this Keep is clearly infested with Chantry spies and you’re not doing a damn thing about it.”

“Ah. You’re referring to Rolan.”

He huffed. “ _ Yes,  _ I’m referring to Rolan. I swear he’s been watching me, him and his little gang.”

“I see." She nodded. "While I can’t prevent him from doing what he wishes during his off-duty hours, I can ensure that you are not placed on concurrent duty.”

“But it’s not just me!” he said. “They’re trying to get at Justice, too, and probably Velanna. They were sent here to watch us, because we’re free mages!”

Loriel pursed her lips. “Do you have any evidence of that?”

“Evidence?! What evidence could you possibly need? Use your eyes! I mean, Andraste’s knickerweasels, it’s hardly a bold leap of conjecture, is it?”

She took and released a steady breath. “While I am happy to take steps to ensure you are not forced to work together if you are uncomfortable with his presence, I hardly see how this is evidence that the Keep is ‘infested’ with Chantry spies.”

His jaw dropped. “You can’t possibly be skeptical of conspiracies after the  _ last  _ one! You’d have to be out of your damn mind to deny you have enemies!”

“I am fully in possession of my faculties, thank you,” Loriel said in a clipped tone. “I’ll note that I’m not the one shouting my head off in my immediate superior’s office.”

“Forget it,” he said bitterly. “I can see it’s just going to be a waste of time with you.”

That stung, unexpectedly. She’d known she’d lost Anders’ good opinion even before she decided to spare the Architect, but they’d still been friendly. Maybe even friends, for a bit. She remembered the surprise wedding reception, how she’d danced. He hadn’t done it for  _ her,  _ but...

She let some of the hurt show on her face. Just enough to maybe make him regret saying it. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

He huffed and looked away. “And what about Justice?” he said instead of apologizing. “They’re after him, too, you know! You said you were going to do something about him, and he’s getting corpesier by the day.”

“Yes, I’ve spoken with him,” she said, although she barely had. She’d been keeping the spirit at arm’s length ever since Drake’s Fall, but then, she’d been keeping everyone at arm’s length for the past couple months, besides Yvanne. 

It wasn’t that the spirit had been noticeably any colder to her since Drake’s Fall, the way Sigrun had. But she hadn’t been able to forget how close it had come to violence between them. She simply couldn’t trust him anymore. There were times when Loriel thought that she understood Justice better than she understood any mortal. He had a duty as innate to him as breathing—not that he breathed. It wasn’t that Justice  _ wanted  _ to bring justice. It was simply what he was. Nobody else in the Wardens understood that the way Loriel did.

“And?”

She cleared her throat. “We agreed that it would be prudent that he take more assignments away from the Keep for now.”

“That’s it? That’s your solution?”

“It’s the best I can do in the current circumstances. So for now, yes.”

“And for later? When Kristoff’s body  _ really  _ starts falling apart?”

“We discussed other possibilities." She sighed. "Justice does not wish to go back to the Fade. I hope to respect this choice.”

“What do you mean,  _ hope?”  _ Anders sounded on the edge of panic. 

“I mean, finding an alternate host may prove problematic,” Loriel said. “Justice is, well... _ just.  _ After his experiences with Aura, he doesn’t want to possess another corpse. And even if he did, that would simply be delaying the problem.”

“So he needs a willing host.”

She shook her head. “Even with a willing host, possessions are always unpredictable. I’ve known possessed mages who apparently experienced no adverse effects, but most possessed people are—” she considered, “—unstable, at best.”

“Because they’re possessed by demons,” Anders protested. “Justice is a spirit!” 

“Yvanne seems to think that difference is not as important as commonly assumed. It isn’t clear to us yet what exactly makes for a successful possession. It would be irresponsible to ask anyone, even a willing host, to take such a risk when we know so little about the consequences. Returning to the Fade may be his best option. Yvanne has been looking into ways to banish him safely.”

“How can you say that?” Anders burst out. “Justice is our friend, and you’re going to banish him?”

She gave him a piercing look. “Hm. You are good friends,” she noted.

“Yeah, we’ve been talking, so what?” he muttered. “Don’t change the subject. You know Justice doesn’t belong in the Fade anymore. He’s changed.”

Maybe nobody belongs anywhere, Loriel thought absently. “We all change. It’s for the best.”

“Oh, the  _ best,”  _ he said scornfully, a cruel curl to his lip that she had seen before, on a few select occasions. She’d never thought to be on the receiving end of it. “Is that what you think you’re doing? Watching out for everyone’s best interests?”

She stared back, unfazed. “Yes, Anders. That  _ is  _ what I think I’m doing.”

“Well, you have a unique way of going about it, I’ll say.”

“And what exactly do you mean by that?”

“I mean you’re bloody scary!” he snapped. “Do you even realize, how scary you are? I get that you don’t listen to anyone anymore, not even your own damn wife, but really, do you have  _ any  _ idea? Draining the life out of people, paralyzing their lungs, and then inviting a bunch of Templars for high tea, as though they aren’t going to notice that?”

“Contrary to your apparent belief, Anders, I actually  _ am  _ aware that magic tends to be viewed with fear and suspicion, yes. Or do you forget that we were imprisoned in the same tower?” She fought the urge to stand up, assert her powers, escalate the conflict. It wouldn’t have helped. He was a solid foot taller than her. 

No, better to stay seated, in control. Let  _ him  _ get emotional. “But I don’t suffer from the illusion that some types of magic are somehow subject to a lesser degree of bigotry.”

“So you really don’t see any difference between healing the sick and stopping the hearts of a dozen people at once?” he said sardonically.

“Oh, please,” she said, irritated despite herself. “That’s what you’re going to fling at me? Those people had every intention of killing me. My men were going to try their best to kill them no matter what happened. I simply expedited the conflict, to spare my men pain and injury and possibly even death, because what is the point of magic if you cannot use it to help people? Just because it didn’t feel very fair doesn’t mean it was wrong.”

“That isn’t the—”

“I am simply finished being ashamed of myself,” she said primly. Then, the finishing blow: “I would have thought a fellow mage would understand as much.”

That shut him up. He glared down at the rug. Suddenly a memory struck her—the three of them in this very room, huddled on the floor, a mahogany box between them containing their phylacteries. How they’d all held hands and smashed them together, Kinloch alumni turned Wardens freeing themselves together. Yvanne had brought in the rug to cover the stain that was probably still there. Anders had loudly said it was the ugliest thing he'd ever seen, and Yvanne had punched him on the arm.

She sighed. “Anders, wait. I’m—”

“Save it,” he bit out, turning on his heel. “I’ve heard enough.”

The door slammed. The vibrations from it nearly rattled the inkwell off Loriel’s desk. After that she tried to go back to her book, but it was no good concentrating up here. She would retire to her private laboratory space, she decided, and hang anybody else that wanted to talk to her til nightfall.

—

When she finally emerged she had gotten precious little done. Her mind still ran with echoes of what had been said in her office, unsettling her just enough to wreck her concentration. The longer she forced herself to try and focus, the worse it got, so after a time she was obliged to simply give up and go upstairs.

Yvanne sat cross-legged on the bed wearing a formless shift, a volume open on her lap. “Productive day?” she said.

“Approximately.” The shift, far too big for her, was slipping off her shoulder. Almost mindlessly, Loriel kissed the shoulder and pulled the shift up before shedding some outer layers herself. “Any luck with that spirit lore?”

“Some. The problem is that most of what I’ve got is Chantry sources.” Her nose wrinkled. “And it’s increasingly obvious that a lot is being left out. There’s all sorts of spirit traditions being talked around here. Avvar, Chasind, Rivaini...it’s hopeless figuring this stuff out without doing some legwork.”

“I’m sure you will, though,” Loriel said distractedly. “You’re very capable.”

Yvanne’s eyes flicked up to her. “I heard you had it out with Anders today.”

Loriel stiffened. “Oh, please, we did not  _ have it out.  _ He simply had some concerns, which I addressed.”

“Really. And here’s me remembering distinctly how a door slammed so hard this afternoon that the hinge was damaged and will need replacing.”

Loriel winced. “That bad, was it?”

Yvanne smiled slightly. “I wouldn’t worry too much about it. He’ll get over it soon enough, and things will go back to normal.”

“You really think so?” Loriel fiddled with a piece of her hair. It had grown long again of late. “I don’t know. I think he hasn’t seen me the same way since he first saw me use blood magic. He thinks I’m—”

“Well, he’s wrong, then, isn’t he? Oh, come here.” Yvanne tossed aside the Chantry-approved book of spirit lore and carded her fingers through Loriel’s hair, getting the tangles out. “You don’t really think he’s right about any of it, do you?”

“No. I think I’m doing the right thing.”

Yvanne put her hair into a loose braid, destined to come loose in the night. “Then trust in that. I do.”

“Thank you, Yvanne.”

“Wish you’d stop thanking me for stuff like this,” Yvanne sniffed. Dissatisfied with the braid she’d made, she undid it and started another, more complex one, fated to unravel even faster.

“I think I should go visit Avernus,” Loriel said, all in one breath. Then, before Yvanne could reply, “I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and I have my reservations, but I don’t think the letters are doing it. There’s some elements to his research that I think I need to see in person if I want to make any progress on the calling within the decade.”

“Oh,” Yvanne said. “You’ve been exchanging letters with Avernus?”

“Hm? Oh. Yes. I have.” Loriel blinked. “You didn’t know? It wasn’t a secret, I wasn’t hiding it, or anything.”

“No, I know you weren’t,” Yvanne said distractedly. “It must have just slipped one or both of our minds.”

“Right. So will you come with me? It isn’t far to Soldier’s Peak, we’d be back within a few days.”

“I don’t know,” she fretted. “The Keep is a little—socially fragile right now. Is it really wise for both of us to go?”

“Oh. Yes.” Loriel glanced down. “No, you’re right, of course. You mind the Keep, I’ll go alone.”

Yvanne’s fingers tightened in Loriel’s hair. “Alone?” Loriel could tell they were thinking of the same thing. The assault on Amaranthine. The siege of Vigil’s Keep. Drake’s Fall. “No, no, no, that’s even less wise. Please... _ please  _ don’t do that.”

“If you ask it of me,” Loriel said mildly. “But...it would really help the work along. And I’m sure you could find something in his collection on spirit lore, besides these useless Chantry-approved books. We could help Justice.”

Yvanne started another braid. This one, sloppier. “I suppose you’re right,” she said eventually. “Yes, alright, I’ll come with you. I’m sure Garahel can keep things running for a few days without the Vigil burning down.”

—

Yvanne and Anders still weren’t on speaking terms when she left with Loriel for Soldier’s Peak. It made her a bit sad—she was already regretting being so harsh, but remained too proud to apologize—but she doubted it would last forever. Give it a few weeks, she figured.

Besides, a little trip could be like a vacation. Even if it was to visit the mountainous frozen wasteland of a demented old blood mage with only the loosest understanding of regular human morals.

She quipped as much to Loriel, who gave her a reproachful look. “He’s not  _ demented.  _ He’s doing really very remarkable things.”

“You going to start sacrificing the least capable recruits to your dreadful experiments, too?” Yvanne joked.

Loriel didn’t find it particularly funny. “He doesn’t do that anymore,” she said. “He keeps complaining in his letters about how slowly everything’s going without human subjects.”

“Yes, well, I suppose we’ll find out if he’s telling the truth about that.”

“That’s the other reason I wanted to visit,” Loriel said darkly.

They took a coach, because the roads were peaceful and well-maintained these days, and why not go in some degree of comfort? Maker knew that they’d had enough walking across the whole breadth of Ferelden.

When they arrived, two days unhurried travel later, Levi Dryden and his brother Mikhael had the run of the place. As far as either of them knew—or would admit, anyway—the mage Avernus, who had quarters in the upper levels of the castle, was a perfectly ordinary Warden mage, experimenting chiefly on himself with the approval of the Warden-Commander. Who was, essentially, the only authority that mattered.

That was Grey Wardens for you. Bloody secretive lot. Apt to keep a secret blood mage in a castle and not ask too many questions.

Loriel seemed to only vaguely remember who Levi was, let alone his brother, but that was why Yvanne habitually said the names of their contacts aloud when she greeted them. It was funny to remember, sometimes, back in the Tower when Loriel was the socially adept one between the two of them. Yvanne got the report of how Soldier’s Peak was coming along, how trade and lines of communications were running, whether there were any problems that needed seeing to by the Warden-Commander—or realistically, the Warden-Lieutenant. Yvanne was vaguely hoping that there would be, but for once everything was running smoothly, and there didn't seem to be anything for her to do.

The lower levels of the fortress were certainly looking better than the last time they were there, when it had been overrun with demons and walking corpses. People were living there now, not themselves Wardens but Warden-adjacent, curious to get a glance at the legendary Warden-Commander. 

Avernus still lived where he’d lived for the past two hundred years, in his tower. If he was aware of the living fortress below him, he didn’t let on about it. Did he even need to eat, Yvanne wondered? Probably not. Probably just sustained his body with blood magic, somehow. She briefly imagined what that would be like, and shuddered.

“Hello, Avernus,” she said. “Good to see you’re still alive, or whatever passes for alive. Still being a creepy old blood mage, I see. Good for you. I trust you’re well? Sacrificed anybody recently?”

Loriel nudged her disapprovingly, but Avernus didn’t seem to have registered anything she’d said.

“About time you came to visit me, Commander,” he said instead. “I knew you would, sooner or later.”

As far as either of them could tell, the Warden mage had been telling the truth when he promised to keep his experiments 'ethical'. At least Levi hadn’t reported any mysterious disappearances or anything else particularly irregular, and Loriel had intentionally not announced her visit ahead of time, just in case. Everything seemed to be above board.

On the subject of being a creepy old blood mage shut up in a tower doing dreadful experiments that would make a Chantry Mother faint dead away, Yvanne was nominally ‘pro.’ There had been a time when all her dearest fantasies involved gleeful slaughter of Templars, apostasy, illegal magic—the whole bit. If she’d met Avernus as a seventeen-year-old, she probably would have thought he was a hero just for existing.

And technically, she still felt that way. Nothing wrong with a bit of bone-chilling illegal magic. Some light demon summoning, that was fine, too. Even Uldred’s rebellion and its consequences hadn’t changed her mind. Admitting that the Chantry was right about the danger magic could pose meant admitting it could be right about other things. About mages. About what was to be done to them. Yvanne would sooner set herself on fire than come within spitting distance of admitting that. She figured, in principle, if the Chantry proscribed it, it was somebody’s moral duty to do it as hard as possible.

But she was realizing that she didn’t particularly want that somebody to be Loriel.

So Anders was right about her. So she didn’t have any principles. So what? Was that so bad? Her principles had only ever made her miserable. Why was she obliged to hold on to something that only ever hurt?

Yvanne tried following Loriel and Avernus’s discussion about blight and blood and poisoned lyrium, but she quickly lost track of it. It had gotten highly technical very quickly, reaching into concepts that Yvanne was only vaguely aware existed. No wonder Avernus wasn’t interested in talking to her. She was completely out of her depth.

Instead she perused the extensive library, looking for anything on spirit lore. It was no easy task. Many of the books were so moldy that they were little more than damp bricks of wood pulp. Others were so badly charred that their titles couldn’t be made out. Some were mostly intact, but written in such old, obscure dialects that even Yvanne’s classical education in ancient languages couldn’t help her. Some were written in scripts that she couldn’t even recognize.

One tome was written in a mostly-understandable form of ancient Tevene, and seemed promising—but was nearly as high as a man, and bolted to the table besides. Yvanne sighed and went hunting for a dictionary to cross-reference it with and take some notes.

When she couldn’t stand to stare at the unnecessarily elaborate script anymore, she spent time amongst the lower levels of the fortress, making sure that there really wasn’t anything urgent or difficult that somebody needed done. Something.  _ Anything.  _

So passed the days. Yvanne found out some interesting things about spirit lore. Two times a day she pried Loriel away for meals and sunlight, which usually succeeded on the second or third try. All the while a vague anxiety grew in her, like she had abandoned her Keep, and every hour that she remained away from it was dangerous.

It was frustrating. When had she become such a homebody? Didn’t she used to crave freedom, adventure, and the wonders of the whole world? 

She started gently suggesting to Loriel that perhaps they ought to think about heading home. They nearly done, Loriel assured her. Tomorrow they’d go home. Or the day after, certainly.

And so a visit of a few days stretched out into nearly a fortnight.

On the thirteenth day since their departure, Yvanne climbed to the highest tower of Soldier’s Peak, determined to lay down the law--but needn’t have bothered. When she arrived Loriel was in the process of loading her collection of reagents back into her travel box.

“There you are,” Loriel said, brushing some greyish residue off the sleeves of her rope. “I think we’re about done.”

“Oh,” Yvanne said. “Well, good. Figured lots of things out, then?”

“Ah—yes,” Loriel said distractedly, peering at a label of an opaque bottle of brown glass. “Yes, I’ve a lot to test out, when we get home. Much to do.”

“Yes, yes, I look forward to hearing of your results,” the old blood mage said, scribbling something in the margins of a leather-bound tome. 

“Great. Yeah,” said Yvanne, feeling her mood lift at once as Loriel snapped the locks shot on her trunk of vials. “Here, let me get that. You haven’t eaten yet today, have you? You probably should, I’ll get things ready for departure.”

Loriel smiled. “How foolish of me to even contemplate the notion that I could get by without you.”

“Too right,” Yvanne said. “Come on, then.” 

The scratching of Avernus’s quill paused. “Ah—I nearly forgot. What did you end up using my little concoction for? I can tell that you didn’t bother to drink it.”

Yvanne stared in blank incomprehension. But understanding was dawning in Loriel’s eyes.

“Nothing in particular,” she answered.

“Threw it away, did you?” the old blood mage snorted. “Thought as much.”

“No...no, I still have it.”

“Hm,” sniffed the blood mage. “Perhaps not quite so foolish, then. I was quite proud of that recipe.”

Loriel blinked, sowly. “Oh...interesting. I’ll take a look, perhaps.”

“But we’d really better be going,” Yvanne said loudly, although she needn’t have bothered. Avernus was no longer paying attention to either of them.

It was too late to depart that day, so they instead left first thing in the morning. All that night and following morning, Loriel’s mind was somewhere else.

“Productive fortnight, then?” Yvanne said, breaking the growing silence.

Loriel started, lifting her cheek from her fist. “Hm? Oh. Yes. Yes, it was.” She sounded like she was about to elaborate, but trailed off. “I  _ do  _ wish I’d had the wherewithal to ask about what that concoction in the vial was actually supposed to do. It just caught me so off-guard, I’d completely forgotten about it. In a future letter, I suppose…”

Yvanne blanched. “You’re not actually thinking of drinking it, are you?”

Her eyes glinted with amusement. “As I recall, you were the one that dared me to drink it in the first place.”

“I was bloody well joking! Maker, Loriel—”

“Oh, calm down,” she laughed. “It isn’t that serious.”

“You’re cruel and wretched,” Yvanne complained. “I don’t know why I ever married you.”

The rest of the coach ride passed uneventfully. They were making better time on the way back, for which Yvanne was glad. A few hours in, she dozed off against Loriel’s shoulder, then in her lap, falling into a sticky state of half-dream and half-waking.

Only when the coach suddenly stopped did Yvanne realize that she’d fallen entirely asleep, and that it was hours later. “What’s going on?” she mumbled, drowsy.

“I don’t know,” said Loriel.

The coach door opened. It was Garahel, pale-faced. So they were back.

And something was wrong.

“Commander,” he said, bowing his head. “It’s good to see you back. We’ve been watching the roads for your arrival. We thought…something’s happened.”

“What’s going on, Garahel?” Yvanne demanded.

“You had better come see.”

—

In the growing dark, it was hard to see the blood. It appeared not red but black, though not all of it had dried yet; much of it had mixed with the mud and the dew. It was more readily smelled than seen, the distinct reek of iron tingeing the far stronger scents of human waste and rot. The bodies themselves were easier, though not a one of them remained in tact. A limb here, part of a torso there, something still recognizable as a head there.

They’d seen worse. The darkspawn did worse, in greater numbers. This was only four men, four Grey Wardens. They’d seen battlefields strewn with hundreds, witnessed horrors beyond mortal ken.

Nothing had ever sickened Yvanne so much in her life.

“Anders did this?” she said numbly.

“We believe so,” Garahel said. “He was on patrol with them.”

“I thought I ordered them not to be put on patrol together,” Loriel said sharply. “What happened?”

“I don’t know, Commander. But we have multiple witnesses attesting that he was last seen with them. I have men looking for him. No success yet.”

“Is there anything _else_ I should know about?”

Loriel had meant it sardonically, but it seemed Garahel wasn't done delivering bad news.

“Kristoff’s body was found in the courtyard a few days ago.” Yvanne took her eyes off the carnage to look up at him. “It was already in an advanced state of decay. His ashes have been returned to his widow.”

“I see,” Loriel said coolly. “We’ll investigate this, Garahel. Please leave us for now.”

If he found the order strange, he didn’t show it. He bowed, and departed.

Yvanne was still staring at the carnage. Loriel touched her gently on the arm. “Yvanne, I am... _ so  _ sorry. This is entirely my fault. If I hadn’t held us up, if I’d agreed to leave Soldier’s Peak when you wanted to, this would never have happened. I don’t know what to say. If you’re furious with me, I understand.”

Yvanne produced a dry, ugly bark of a laugh. “You know, love, one of these days you’re going to have to realize that you aren’t responsible for every horrible thing that happens in this world.”

“Maybe I am,” Loriel said. She’d meant it as a joke, but it had some out a little manic and unsteady. Yvanne didn’t respond. She tightened her grip on her arm. She needed to fix this, somehow. “I haven’t been studying necromancy recently, but I know a few rare spells. It might not work, but I think I can raise one of these corpses, ask it what really happened—”

“Stop it,” Yvanne said, shaking her off. “Just stop it! No necromancy, no corpse interviews, none of that! This is already awful enough as it is. What’s the point of dragging some poor sod out from whatever rest he’s made it to just so he can confirm what’s obvious enough?”

“ _ Is _ it obvious?” Loriel said softly.

“I should damn well fucking say so,” Yvanne said. “Seems pretty clear to me. Our Anders got himself possessed, dragged poor Justice into it, lost his damn mind, and tore apart a handful of innocent boys because his paranoid fucking ass couldn’t handle life on the outside of the tower walls.”

Loriel winced. “You really think he’d do something like this?” 

There was a moment, and both of them were aware of it, even if later they both pretended not to be. In that moment they both thought,  _ no.  _ That Yvanne’s explanation was plausible, tempting, and wrong. After all, it didn’t take much inventiveness to generate an alternative version of events, one where Anders’ paranoia was entirely correct, where he had no choice, where he acted in self-defense.

But if it were true, that thing that they both were thinking—if it were true—then it meant that this really was Loriel’s fault. That she had known about everything, about Anders’ fears and Rolan and Justice, and had let it happen anyway. Had simply gone off to Soldier’s Peak on her own business and ignored it. And it meant that Yvanne had known, too, and closed her eyes and trailed after Loriel like she always did. Because that way she could take the path of least resistance, and still call herself virtuous. Devoted. Reliable. 

If it were true, it would tear them apart. Maybe not right away, but someday visible on the horizon. After all, who could live with that self knowledge?

_ If  _ it were true.

“Maybe not the Anders I knew,” Yvanne said eventually. “But we’ve both changed. Maybe I didn’t know him as well as I thought I did.”

“Oh, Yvanne…” Loriel sighed. 

Yvanne inhaled, closing her eyes. “Can we please just burn these corpses and go home? Maker, I’m going to have to write their families, aren’t I?”

“I’ll do that,” Loriel told her, rubbing small circles into her shoulders. “I’m the Commander. It’s my job.”

“Doing that now, are you?” Yvanne muttered. Loriel ignored that, because she was hurting, and didn’t mean it, and anyway, she was right.

Maybe, she thought desperately, maybe Yvanne was right. Maybe they really were just innocent boys. Anders really did have a tendency for paranoia. Who was she to say?

The most difficult part was gathering up the limbs. Some had been flown well out of the clearing. There was probably no danger of anything possessing a body so dismembered, but corpses were to be burned. It was proper.

They could have had their men do this for them, but magical fire burned hotter and brighter, and this way it was over quicker. A few weeks from now, this clearing would heal. It would be green and peaceful again. 

Yvanne remembered the time she had shown Justice the sparrow’s nest. Was that spot around here, somewhere? She felt like retching all over again.

When the pyre had reduced the remains to nothing but ash and memory, they doused the embers.

At some point, Loriel took Yvanne’s hand, and she didn’t shake her off.

“What are we going to do about this?” Yvanne said hollowly. 

“I don’t know.”

“Should we look for him? Send men to bring him in?”

“We could do that.”

“And what would we do even if we found him? Execute him?”

“Is that what you want?” Loriel asked.

Yvanne sniffed. “No. Of course I don’t.” She rubbed at her eyes. “But he could hurt someone. We’d be responsible.” She was aware of who she sounded like, and was already busily hating herself for it.

“You saw what he did to those men,” Loriel said quietly. “If we send more after him, they’ll likely never come back.” 

The thought of sending actual Templars after a boy they’d both grown up with was so vile that it didn’t even brook mentioning.

“So we cover it up.”

“We’ll make up a story. Something about secret Warden business.”

“What about Garahel?”

“Do you trust him?”

“I want to say yes, but…”

“Then I have a spell for that.”

“Alright. I suppose...alright.”

Loriel hugged her, squeezing tight. “I’m sorry this happened.”

“It wasn’t your fault.” Then, very quietly: “He was my friend. They were both my friends.”

What could she possibly do but hold on tighter? “It’ll be alright, love. I don’t know how, but it will.”

And it was. For a time.


	10. Chapter 10

The problem, of course, was that for what felt like a long time, it _ was _alright.

In the months that followed, Loriel threw herself into her work, driven half by guilt and half by some unknown manic energy. If before she was aloof, she was a ghost now. The few remaining Commander’s duties which she had retained gradually slid under Yvanne’s purvey. A couple of the new recruits didn’t even seem to realize that Yvanne _ wasn’t _the actual Warden-Commander, and seemed very confused to take orders from her, given that they’d all thought the Hero of Ferelden was supposed to be an elf.

Loriel encouraged her to stop correcting them. In response to Yvanne’s protests, she simply said, “Oh, very well. You can be _ acting _Warden-Commander instead. Does that satisfy?”

So Yvanne was acting Warden-Commander. 

There was more to do now than ever, with the Ferelden Wardens still growing. To keep track of it all, Yvanne was obliged to withdraw from much of her old daily routine, and resort to delegation. She simply had no other choice. She spent more and more time at a desk taking reports, writing letters in Loriel’s name, hearing petitions. Sometimes if she ruled against somebody, they would demand to see the _ actual _ Arlessa and hear _ her _opinion. Every time, Yvanne would dutifully fetch her, and every time, Loriel would listen to the dispute with a glazed expression, nod understandingly, and back up Yvanne’s decision, whatever it had been. Eventually, people stopped asking to see the actual Arlessa. The actual Arlessa unnerved them, anyway, with her black, black eyes, and her too-pale skin and all the grisly stories about what she had done to save Amaranthine.

It was just as well, because the departure of Anders—and Justice with him—had as good as ripped a gaping hole in the social fabric of the Vigil’s original Wardens, and left it to rapidly unravel. It wasn’t that they weren’t friends anymore, but they were no longer a _group_ . Yvanne still tried to keep up with their lives, to the degree she still could. Were Velanna and Nathaniel _ together _together, or just together? How were Felsi and the nugget doing? Did Sigrun need another book? But it was getting harder and harder, and it wasn’t making her happy anymore. It just reminded her of what didn't exist anymore.

They’d come together to accomplish something, and they’d accomplished it, and now they were inevitably drifting apart. Maybe that was just the way of things.

Things didn’t change all that much between her and Loriel. They still spent a great deal of time together. They ate together. They drank a restrained glass of evening red together. They went to bed together. Oh, yes, they went to bed. Back when Yvanne was a teenager and falling into a discreet closet with anybody she could get ahold of, just because it was something to get away it, she’d thought of sex as something sort of fun but mostly uncomfortable. She’d had no idea how good it could be, with someone you really loved, when you knew so much about each other, when you had all the time you wanted to explore anything you liked. 

In fact, when Yvanne thought about her life _ now _ as opposed to even a few years ago, it was so good, so much better than anything she'd had any right to hope for. It wasn’t that she was _ never _angry or afraid, but compared to the stew of constant, helpless rage and fear—this was the dream. This was the life that she had fought so hard for.

It had all been so intense before, but maybe that was just what it was to be young. Yvanne wasn’t _ that _much older than she’d been, but she felt old, like the main part of her life was already over. She’d had her grand romance, her heroic adventure, but it was over; the curtain had fallen. Now she was an actor still standing on an empty stage, unaware that the play was over, and only just now beginning to feel foolish.

And month ticked after month, until another full turn of the seasons had come and gone, and still the days piled higher.

—

Yvanne woke suddenly. She didn’t jerk awake or scream, she was too used to nightmares for that. She just slowly became aware that she was safe in her bed, still human, still sane. She groped blindly in the dark for Loriel, but found her side of the bed cold and empty. Then she remembered that she’d gone to bed alone that night, as she did more and more often. But even on the nights when she got too tired or impatient to wait for Loriel, she always came to bed later. Usually if Yvane woke in the night, as she often did, there was someone there waiting for her. But not tonight.

For a while she lay in the dark feeling her sweat cool on her skin, until she was shivering. The Keep could get quite cold. Sure, she could have simply redrawn a fire sigil under the bed, but suddenly she didn’t really want to stay under the covers. With a sigh, she got out of bed and slipped into a heavy robe, feeling the cold flagstones on her bare feet. 

It was a good thing that Loriel was never difficult to find.

Yvanne groped in the dark until she found the passageway to her laboratory. She felt oddly furtive going down there alone, for a reason she couldn’t pinpoint. It felt, irrationally, like a violation.

Loriel was asleep at the desk she kept down there, head on her folded arms, snoring softly. She woke right away when Yvanne touched her shoulder.

“Hm? You’re still up?” she yawned.

“Already up, more like," Yvanne said. "You never came to bed.”

Loriel rubbed her eyes. “What time is it?”

“Not too long til dawn, I think.”

“Oh, no...I’m sorry, love. I must have lost track of time, and...fallen asleep.”

“It’s alright. I only just woke up.” She eyed her. Was it the dim light of this room—the gas lamps had long since gone out, leaving only Loriel’s fading magelight wisp to illuminate it—or were the circles under her eyes deeper than before? “You should really try to sleep in a bed more often. You look tired.”

“Why were you up, anyway?” Loriel said, and Yvanne didn’t fail to notice that she hadn’t really responded to her last comment.

“Bad dreams,” Yvanne said briefly. 

“Oh?”

She recognized that tone. No getting out of it. She waved a dismissive hand. “Usually I just get back to sleep, but you weren’t there. It was cold.” _ And I got worried. _

“Darkspawn dreams?”

Yvanne considered lying. “Yes,” she said instead.

Loriel’s brow crumpled. “They’re still bad, then?”

“Not so bad,” Yvanne said vaguely. “Still not my favorite thing in the world, but better than they used to be, during the Blight and right afterward. Mostly I’m used to them. Are you coming to bed or are you going to spend the rest of the night impressing wood grain onto your cheek?”

She snorted. “I’ll come to bed. I’m clearly too tired to get anything done tonight, anyway.”

“Good,” Yvanne said, relieved. “We can sleep in tomorrow. You look like you need it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m fine.”

Yvanne rolled her eyes good-naturedly. “Here, this might help a bit.” She put her hands on Loriel’s pale cheek and muttered a spell she’d known for a long time, now. A tiny wisp of a spirit came to her, and her hand glowed briefly blue against her skin.

Loriel let out a little breath. “That _ did _help. What was it?”

“Blood-replenishing spell. Just helps along what the body does naturally.” She couldn’t help but remember. “We used to cast it on women giving birth. In Kinloch.” She shook her head, trying to dispel the memory like dusting a cobweb, but it was no good. “I used to hate doing that. Helping bring a life into this world that was just going to get sold to the Chantry. I never felt worse about being a healer.” 

She trailed off. She rarely thought about Kinloch. Whenever she did, it was like she was back there, still teenaged and furious, and there was little she hated more than to feel that way.

Loriel noticed. She grabbed her hand. “Thank you for it. I do feel better. Let’s go to bed, then.”

“Right. Yeah.”

They turned to go upstairs.

Then Loriel said, “I’m going to get you out of this, you know.” She said it so low and quiet that Yvanne wasn’t sure it had even been meant for her.

“What?”

“The dreams,” Loriel said. A fey light was in her eyes. “The Blight, the Calling...all of it. I got you into this, and I’m going to get you out. I’m going to get us both out. I swear it.”

Yvanne fiddled uncomfortably with the end of one of her braids. “You don’t need to do that.”

“I do, though,” Loriel said, yawning. “I do.”

“I’ll settle for you sleeping in an actual bed with me,” Yvanne said. “Come on, let’s go. I’ll get the light.”

—

One day early in the spring a knock on her office door revealed Nathaniel. Straight-backed, proud-shouldered Nathaniel Howe, how different he was from the man she’d met (and screamed at) in the dungeons so long ago—though it hadn’t been that long, had it? Two years, going on three. Not so long at all, really, but it felt like ages.

He indulged her obvious desire for small-talk for a while, but Nathaniel Howe wasn’t a man to beat around the bush. He got right to the point—he was requesting a different posting, far from Vigil’s Keep.

“Why?” she asked, befuddled, slightly hurt, and doing a bad job of hiding it. “I mean, of course you can have whatever posting you want, but…”

He shrugged and muttered something that sounded perfectly reasonable and utterly empty, and even all her most skillful prying wasn’t enough to get anything approaching the truth out of him. All she could do was shrug and approve the transfer and sternly lecture him on the importance of regular reports, and he’d better believe that if she didn’t hear from him for too long there would be hell to pay, from her and Delilah both. Yvanne saw her more often these days. She’d left Ser Pounce-a-Lot with her months ago. It was just too damn sad to see the poor animal wandering around the Vigil without Anders there to take care of it, and she didn’t want reminders of him, anyway. 

Nathaniel laughed and said he was sure there would be, and departed a few days later. It all seemed to happen so fast. Less than a week and another one of them was gone.

It was a real shame, too. Of the people Yvanne trusted most, Nathaniel was the only one with even a smidgen of leadership potential. She wanted trustworthy people in high positions of the Ferelden Warden’s command structure, and nobody else fit the bill. Velanna would have been her second choice, but the last time she'd had any authority, she’d lead her people to a grisly death. Sigrun was too much of a follower, too ready to defer and subvert herself. And Oghren was...Oghren.

Nathaniel, though—she wouldn’t have thought it when she first met him, but he would have made a fine commanding officer. She’d been hoping to make him her successor 

But he was gone now.

Her first, most obvious thought was that something had happened between him and Velanna. She never _ had _quite figured out the nature of their relationship, just that there almost definitely was some kind of relationship. Or perhaps there wasn’t, anymore. But asking Velanna was less than illuminating. Even the mention of Nathaniel in her presence was liable to send her abruptly out of the room, and the one time Yvanne risked asking her directly, she got snarled at so viciously that she didn’t feel inclined to try again.

But Velanna was going to be fine, Yvanne was pretty sure. Velanna was like the vines she used in combat—resilient, and ridiculously so. It was Sigrun that she was worried about. She couldn’t help but feel like the ex-Legionnaire was still just waiting for her chance to die.

“How are you holding up?” was Yvanne’s regular question to her.

“Oh, me? I’m fine,” Sigrun said, just as cheerful as ever. It was pretty easy to get her going. They talked about the book Sigrun was reading right now and whether it was any good (it wasn’t) and whether Yvanne should read it (she definitely should). 

“But what about you?”

Yvanne stared blankly. “What _ about _me?”

Sigrun laughed. “I mean, how are you doing? We hardly ever get to talk anymore. What with you being so busy.”

“We don’t, do we?” Yvanne sighed. “Funny how the months get away from you. I swear the whole summer passed without me noticing.”

“Haha, not me!” said Sigrun. “It’s still such a novelty to me. I love watching the seasons change. My favorite is winter, when it snows.”

Yvanne remembered when summer had been a novelty. When snow was a delight, and the brilliance of autumn colors and spring flowers was a marvel unparalleled. For most of her life she had watched the seasons change from inside the a tower prison.

Sigrun smiled slightly. “I really am fine, you know.” 

“Wasn’t saying you weren’t,” Yvanne said, as though she hadn’t been doing a fair impression of an anxious mother hen for nearly a year now. “Just wanted to, you know. Check in.”

“Consider me checked.” And then she sighed. “I just miss them sometimes.”

A sudden, powerful wave of abject misery hit Yvanne before she could consciously stop it. She was supposed to be happy. She was supposed to have fought for this. How could she possibly be so ungrateful as not to want it anymore?

She had to talk to Loriel. She knew she did. But these days Loriel felt as remote and inaccessible as a high, locked tower. 

And besides, it wasn’t so bad. It wasn’t intolerable. Mostly, she was happy. She was.

—

“Hey—is everything alright?”

Loriel’s head hit the pillow with a thump and a weak exhale. “Sorry, love, I think I’m just tired.”

Yvanne rolled off her. “No need to be sorry.” She tried not to sound petty or passive-aggressive about it, because she wasn’t. Or at least, not about _ this. _

Loriel propped her head up, leaning on her elbow. “I can still…”

“No, it’s fine. You’re tired.”

Loriel was often tired lately. It was no wonder. She’d lost weight—a lot of weight, and she hadn’t had much to begin with. Her ribs and pelvis and collarbone all pressed thin against increasingly papery skin. And then there were the scars.

She’d started out being quite professional about it, when she’d first gotten heavily into what was essentially blood magic research with herself as the subject. Neat incisions with minimal scarring, or none at all if Yvanne was on hand. But as time went on she cared less and less about neatness. Both her thighs were covered with little marks. Her arms, too.

It was taking it out of her, the research. Yvanne had increasingly little idea of how it was going. Loriel didn’t talk about it as much as she used to. But her eyes were getting hollower, and the scars were getting sloppier, and some days Yvanne thought she looked like she might disappear altogether.

If Yvanne thought too much about it she’d start panicking. So she tried not to think too much about it. Maker knew all her attempts to talk to Loriel about it were about as useful as a square wagon wheel.

“That spell might help. The bl—”

“I know the one.” For a moment Yvanne thought to refuse. Loriel couldn’t cast it herself; blood magic interfered too much with her connection to the Fade, made spirit healing impossible for her. Maybe if Yvanne stopped helping her, if Loriel really had to feel everything she was doing to herself...

Maybe she’d stop, clear her head. Realize that what she was doing wasn’t helping anyone.

But who was she kidding? She was a born enabler. She’d never refused Loriel a thing. Wordlessly, she cast the spell.

Loriel let out a little breath of relief. Some color had returned to her cheeks, but she didn’t exactly look _ healthy. _ “Thank you. I owe so much to you.”

“Mm.”

Yvanne got under the covers, and, realizing that actually she was _ also _pretty tired, resolved to sleep.

“Are _ you _alright?” Loriel said.

She wished she hadn’t asked that. “I’m just worried about you,” Yvanne mumbled.

That upset her. It always did. “I’m sorry,” she said.

Yvanne groaned and buried her head under the pillow. “Stop being sorry already. It doesn’t help.”

“You’re the one who said you were worried.” Her voice wasn’t exactly _ petulant, _but...

“You’re the one who asked.”

Loriel hmphed. “Excuse me, then, for having perfectly reasonable concern for my wife.”

Like she was falling or _ that _old trick. “You’re excused.” 

“I can get worried too, you know.”

_ You don’t, though. _“I know.”

They lay in silence for a while.

“Are you even still attracted to me?” Loriel whispered.

Yvanne was so surprised that she took the pillow off her head and sat up. “What?”

“Am I ugly to you?”

“Andraste’s—no, you’re not. Of course you’re not.”

“Don’t think I haven’t noticed.” Loriel pulled the sheets tight across her shoulders. “I’ve changed. The way you look at me has changed.”

“Nothing’s changed. Not that, anyway.”

Loriel’s breath hitched. “I’m not an idiot, you know. It’s alright if you don’t want me anymore.”

“Stop it.”

“I’ll understand. Really, I will.”

“I said, _ stop it.” _

Loriel fell silent. 

“You are,” said Yvanne, “the most beautiful woman in the world. To me, you always will be.” She meant it. Even now. “But you’re really scaring the shit out of me lately.”

Loriel had given her that look before, lots of times, but never out of eyes so sunken.

“You’re not sleeping. You’re not eating. And the blood magic…”

“I’m doing this for you.”

“Yeah? I never asked for you to.”

“You did, though,” Loriel mumbled. “Not directly. But you did. You asked in a hundred little ways.”

“You never gave me any of what I _ really _wanted,” Yvanne shot back. “And I’ve learned to live with it, haven’t I? I still love you, don’t I? So don’t—just, don’t.”

It wasn’t fair. _ Never _was an exaggeration. But she’d already said it and there was no taking it back.

She rolled over and pretended to be asleep, marking the end of the conversation. Loriel didn’t pursue it. In fact, she got out of bed entirely. Yvanne lay awake for—she didn’t know how long. Maybe only minutes. Maybe longer. She was sure Loriel wouldn’t come back at all, that she’d gone back down to her lab, but she did. The bed creaked and there was a brief rush of cold air and there she was again. Yvanne wrapped her arms around her and didn’t even complain about her cold feet and cold hands, and Loriel buried her face in her neck. They didn’t mention the argument in the morning, and Yvanne tried not to think about how in the morning light, Loriel looked like she’d barely slept at all.

—

Yvanne spent more time around Oghren these days.

At first she told herself it was because she was going to help him get his life together. It had never sat well with her, the easy way Loriel seemed ready to give up on a person they both considered, in his own way, a friend. _ You can’t treat people like projects, _Loriel would say, and Yvanne would sniff. What did she know? She hardly treated anyone like anything.

But after three separate failed interventions and countless falls off the wagon even Yvanne was starting to think that Loriel might have been right about this one.

But, hell, who else was she going to reminisce with? It almost seemed perverse to reminisce with Loriel. They’d been too close. The memories they shared of the Blight bent under the weight of the memories they shared of—everything else. 

It was so easy, being around Oghren. He didn’t demand a damn thing, and it was so easy to laugh around him. All Yvanne would have to do was say, “Remember the poet-tree?” and they’d both be cackling for probably longer than the quality of the joke warranted.

The drink helped, but it was still funny.

Of course she drank. What else was she going to do?

Yvanne wondered sometimes what would happen, if she just disappeared. What would happen to the Keep? After the siege, she had become like an overbearing mother to this place and its people. What had happened with Anders had only strengthened the feeling. But really, did this place even need her? If she vanished one night, the next-most senior Warden would take over—it was some fellow name Tevye, who’d gotten promoted ahead of the older Wardens on the basis of basic competence and leadership ability—and between him and the robust administrative support that Yvanne had spent so long cultivating, the Keep would probably be fine. If she stayed in bed all day, probably nothing bad would happen at all.

Oh, sure, there were still plenty for her to _ do. _Assignments to review. Letters to send. Rotations to sign off on. But it wasn’t the same. Anyone could have done it.

That was what she got, for being such a diligent leader. She had rendered herself obsolete.

It was a cold morning, the one where she realized she knew how Oghren felt.

They played cards together, and enabled. That was one nice thing, about being a spirit healer. No hangovers.

“You know some of these days I swear I’m not even needed around here,” she hiccuped.

“Y’say that like it’s a bad thing, Warden,” he said, and took another swig.

They played cards until they no longer had the dexterity to hold them. 

“Oghren,” she said, throwing her head back to stare at the dancing lights above. “Oghren, I think I’m rotting.”

He just laughed as though she'd said something painfully naive. “Warden, we’re all rotting." He topped off her tankard. "Get yer kicks in while you can, and sod the rest."

\--

Another night, another game. They bet drinks and played to lose.

“Why does anybody love anyone, anyway?” Yvanne said, staring at her terrible hand. “You ever think about that? You ever think about why you loved Branka, or Felsi, or the kid? Makes no damn sense, does it? Maybe you just love people because they’re there, and the love is inside of you, and it needs somewhere to go. Does that make sense?”

“No,” he said, and belched. “Y’shouldn’t’a reminded me of Branka. Now I need another drink.”

“What you _ need _is to go soak your head.” But she poured him another drink anyway. Why the hell not? Weren’t they all dying, anyway? Weren’t they dying right this second, no matter what Loriel did or didn’t do?

“That’s what’s so funny about it all,” she said out loud. “It doesn’t matter at all that she’s killing herself over this! It doesn’t matter at all. We’re all dying. Not just us Wardens, either. All of us, every single one.” She laughed. “Maybe you were right.”

“Course I’m right, Warden.” He raised his tankard. “Say the toast. Drinks don’t count if you say a toast.”

“Get your kicks in,” Yvanne toasted. “Sod the rest.”

They drank.

“Y’know what I really like about you, Oghren?” she said. It was later. She didn’t know how much later. “I can say whatever the hell I want to you, and you’re not going to remember any of it in the morning. Anything I want! Stuff I usually won’t even_ think_. You’re such a good goddamn friend. I’m glad we met."

Oghren made a noise halfway between a grunt and a belch.

“Too right.” She stared out over her tankard. “I just don’t understand why she’s doing this to me. I’ve told her she doesn’t need to. But it’s like arguing with the sea. She says she’s doing it for me, but I don’t _ want _it. Why can’t she see that? Why would she do this to me?” 

Why, indeed? She looked at Oghren, his meaty fist clenched around a dark red bottle. He had his vice. Yvanne was well on her way to the same one. Maybe Loriel’s was a little unusual, but was it any different?

_ Why would she do this to me? _It was the question she’d been asking over and over again in her head. It was easier to obsess over the question, after all, than to obsess over the only reasonable answer—that what Loriel was doing had nothing to do with Yvanne at all.

“I love her so much,” she hiccupped. “But I can’t remember why ‘nymore. Maybe I’m drunk, ‘n that’s why I can’t remember. But I don’t think I can remember when I’m sober, either. But I do love her. I love her _ so much. _You know?”

If Oghren knew he didn’t say so. He was already snoring in his chair.

Yvanne started crying. It was true. She did love her, so much. And maybe when the room stopped spinning she’d go upstairs and tell her so and maybe _ this _time it would work.

Maybe an hour later she made it, but Loriel wasn’t there, and she fell asleep alone. She felt terrible in the morning, but not for very long.

—

One night she returned to their chambers so late that Loriel was there. That hardly ever happened anymore. Most nights Yvanne waited for her, and many nights out of those she didn’t manage to wait long enough.

“Loriel! My best friend! My wife! My beloved!” She swept her into a sloppy embraced, nearly overbalancing. She leaned on her, laying her head on her shoulder. Her hair smelled like sweat, iron, and the acrid stench of intensifying reagent. “You make me so damn sad.” 

Loriel steadied her. Yvanne could feel her trembling beneath her weight, but she couldn’t seem to make herself stand up.

“You’ve been drinking,” Loriel said. It was an observation.

“So what if I have?” Yvanne snorted and drew back. “What else am I going to do?”

“You know I don’t like it when you drink.”

“Yes, well,” Yvanne said, waving a hand dismissively. “You do lots of things I don’t like, too.”

She sighed. “You should have some water.”

“Spirit healer, remember? Don’t need to bother. I’m hangover-proof!” She wiggled her fingers to demonstrate. “Anything goes wrong, I can just use magic to fix it. Isn’t that what you’re counting on?”

Loriel looked like she wanted to say something, and then thought better of it.

“Listen, Lori—I’ve been thinking,” Yvanne said. She wasn’t really all that drunk. Just enough to give her the courage to say this. “Maybe we should get out of here.”

Loriel eyed her, arms crossed across her belly. “What do you mean, get out of here?”

“Out of the Keep.”

“Like a vacation?”

“Sure, sure. Vacation,” Yvanne said vaguely. “Maybe one we don’t have to come back from.”

She watched Loriel’s face, which gave nothing away, not so much as a twitch.

“I mean, we’re not really even needed here, are we?” she barreled on, before Loriel could say anything. “Keep practically runs itself, at this point. We had a goal here, and we accomplished it, why stick around?”

For a bright moment it seemed as though Loriel were thinking about it. Or else it was just her imagination. “And where would we go, exactly?”

“I don’t know,” Yvanne said. “Does it matter? It can be anywhere.”

Loriel only looked at her. “I thought you wanted to stay here,” she said, in a voice much sharper than her expression belied.

“I did, but—”

“I thought you were growing your garden,” she said, cold.

“I was! And I did! And it’s grown now, it doesn’t need me anymore. Doesn’t need us.”

“Isn’t it funny,” Loriel said remotely, after a time, “how only one of us is ever happy at a time?”

“Oh, come on!” Yvanne burst out. “You can’t possibly expect me to believe that you’re really happy? You’re killing yourself.”

“I am happy, in my own way,” Loriel said evenly. “I have everything I need, right here. I enjoy my work.”

Yvanne meant to argue, but Loriel cut her off. “Do not fault me because my happiness doesn’t look like yours.”

“Come on, Lori,” she said, going soft, “Wouldn’t it be nice to run away together? We never got to do that, did we?”

“Always with the running away.” Loriel set her jaw. “You’re still running away. Because of course you are. When are you going to stop?”

“It was a turn of phrase,” Yvanne said defensively. “It doesn’t have to be _ away. _ It can be _ towards. _ Towards a future.” A future where Loriel didn’t need a blood-replenishing spell every few days. A future where they could actually be a _ part _ of the world. A future where they weren't rotting in here, in anticipation of a death that hadn't come yet.

Once, the world had offered itself to her imagination. She had always revolved around Loriel, but at a distance, and no more than she revolved around her in turn. But slowly that orbit had shrunk—and the worse Loriel got, the faster it narrowed, going faster and faster, until Loriel was all she could see, all she could think about in a rising panic that threatened to swallow her whole.

And Loriel, as always, stayed put.

“Towards a future,” Loriel said skeptically. “A future you’re also going to get tired of, in a couple months time?”

“That’s not—it isn’t—”

“It is, though. It is.” No sound but the two of their mingled breaths. 

Loriel went on: “You told me about the dream the Sloth demon made for you, back during Uldred’s rebellion. You said we had children, in your dream.”

“I remember.” She still dreamed of it, sometimes. That dream had been full of sunlight. Not like their shadowed chambers here.

Funny, how their world had shrunk to these four walls. This room was the only one they ever saw each other in. Yvanne had every part of it committed to memory. The velvet canopy; the linen sheets; the copper bathtub in the corner; the fireplace; the woven rug. Their home, their prison. Loriel, her home, her prison.

“But how realistic was that, really?” Loriel whispered. “Would you have gotten tired of that, too?”

Yvanne struggled for the right response, choking on the unfairness of it all. Loriel could be awfully manipulative, when she wanted to be. She didn’t fault her for it. It had kept them alive in Kinloch. But she hated when she caught Loriel doing it to her, knowing that there must have been times where she _ didn’t _catch her.

If she could have just explained—

No. That wasn’t true, was it? No matter how much she explained, Loriel wouldn’t want to hear it. Loriel would find some way to turn it around on her.

Unpleasantly, she was reminded of Wynne.

“I’m—going to take a walk,” she said. “Clear my head.”

She went out onto a parapet. She had proposed to her here. Right there, on that spot, in the moonlight much like the moonlight tonight. It had been—nearly two years ago, now. 

_ Do not fault me because my happiness doesn’t look like yours. _

This had not occurred to her. It was hitting her now, the idea that Loriel might really be happy. That, absent any looming threats or mandatory duties, she really did prefer this life above all others. That her aloneness, her work, her magic—was enough for her. That what Yvanne experienced as loneliness, stagnation, rot—Loriel simply experienced as contentment.

Now _ that _was a sobering thought. 

After all, she thought, why were they together at all? Because they loved each other. But why did they love each other? The same reason anybody loved anybody, of course. But the two of them, specifically?

Because they had been imprisoned together. 

But now the prison walls were gone. They’d destroyed them, one by one. They’d been shackled beside one another, and now they weren’t. Now they were free.

Without the prison walls pressing down on them, without the shackles binding them together—why in the Maker's name would a pair of prisoners be so foolish as to flee together?

Yvanne looked at her wedding ring, a simple golden band, the least elaborate of all her rings. Wasn’t that a shackle, too?

Some days she wished she’d been a better study at shapeshifting. At the time she’d insisted that it was simply because Morrigan was such a bad teacher, and that was true, but it wasn’t why she’d failed at it. If only she’d tried a little harder, she might have at least acquired it. And then she might have turned into a bird and taken off from this parapet, wheeled in the air for as long as she liked, and maybe never returned.

But she wasn’t a bird and she wasn’t a shapeshifter. She was Yvanne Amell, and maybe she was fickle and thoughtless and everything Wynne had called her during their last meeting—but she had chosen this home, and this person. Again and again, she had chosen them.

Her head pulsed. She really did need some water. So she went back inside to live with her choices, such as they were.


	11. Chapter 11

_ She didn’t ask,  _ Loriel would tell herself, after.  _ She never asked.  _

But that was later, much later. For a long time, everything was fine.

After the bloody clearing, Loriel fell into her work the way one might fall down the stairs—not all at once, but once the process had begun, it became almost impossible to stop.

It was almost like being back in Kinloch. She spent all day surrounded by stone, studying magic. Only now it was on her own terms, something she was doing because she wanted to. Her freedom looked an awful lot like her prison, but it didn’t matter what it looked like. What mattered was what it was.

And of course she still had Yvanne.

Most days she woke later than she liked, with the whole morning having slipped away from her. The guilt of having done that was enough to rattle her out of any desire for breakfast, so she would go without. She would spend the day at her work, following one idea and then another. It went intolerably slow. Sometimes she couldn’t tell if an experiment had failed because her idea was bad, or because she’d done something wrong. It was just so hard to do this alone. But asking Yvanne to help was unthinkable (though she had promised, hadn’t she? She had promised to help.) 

And when she could no longer stand going back and forth with herself about whether her ideas or her methods were bad, she would go back to her bedchambers. Yvanne would be there, along with a dinner in any possible condition between ‘slightly cooled’ and ‘stone cold and beginning to curdle.’ They would talk, or rather, Yvanne would talk. Loriel would nod along and eat her congealing meal, hardly tasting it. Her mind would be on the project she’d abandoned downstairs, churning with ideas for new ways to try it, if maybe she should return to an earlier form, if maybe she was struggling fruitlessly and Avernus had figured it out decades ago and it would have been faster simply to ask him. 

Yvanne would finish telling her about her day, and ask her about hers, and Loriel would shrug and report that it had been pretty uneventful, really. Just work. And they’d maybe break out an aged bottle of red, and go to bed, and have sex, and afterwards Loriel would lie awake and think of blight and blood and spirit, and eventually, often when the dawn rays were already beginning to break over the horizon, she would sleep.

And then it would begin again. And again. And again.

—

Her library grew, as she requisitioned books from distant libraries, or else copied treatises herself. Her quantity of notes multiplied precipitously, until she could no longer easily keep track of them herself—and it wasn’t as though she could hire an assistant. Nobody else could understand her shorthand, anyway.

Letters from Avernus weren’t frequent, but always illuminating. Rarest of all were cryptic scrawls coming from the Architect. These generally raised more questions than they answered. She wondered if he wrote them himself, or if Utha or Seranni scribed for him. Perhaps Velanna would recognize her sister’s handwriting if she saw it—but Loriel never showed her. The thought of going out and talking to people, of being seen by them, turned her stomach.

She still had the opaque black crystal the Architect had delivered to her with Velanna. It had seemed so exciting at first, like it was surely the answer to everything. But the longer she tried to puzzle out its secrets the less she understood it. The rare times she had contact with the Architect, he was less than helpful. He kept assuming that she knew all sorts of things that she didn’t. When she asked in writing, his response WOULD explain the parts she already thought were obvious. Useless. Avernus, being nearly two centuries old, was bad enough, but the Architect was not old but  _ ancient,  _ and his humanity was further behind him. 

She left the crystal on her desk, until looking at it made her sick with anger at herself. Then she shoved it in a drawer where she couldn’t see it anymore.

Probably she would have made more progress if she kept things better organized, but she’d never needed to be particularly organized before, and now she had no idea how to do it. Nobody had ever taught it to her. Every time it occurred to her that today would be the day she put things in order, it only took a minute of looking around at the mess for her to despair and give up.

It was pathetic. It wasn’t as though she’d never done original magical research before, but the Calling was another beast altogether. There were so many moving parts, and the more she learned the more confused she got. She needed a break, but a break simply wasn’t possible.

Because the clock was ticking. Every day she didn’t understand the Calling was another day that the unthinkable might happen. That one of them might begin to hear the song.

Alistair had said thirty years, but that had been at  _ most  _ thirty years. And even if the  _ average  _ was twenty, twenty-five, that didn’t mean it couldn’t be as few as five, for some people. Was it written down somewhere, how long each Warden lasted before the Calling claimed them? Where would she find such a document, if it was?

Yvanne still had awful darkspawn dreams. Did that mean she was more vulnerable to the Blight than other Wardens? Did that mean the Calling would come to her sooner? Did sooner mean twenty years rather than thirty—or as few as five? How much time did they have? 

What made one person vulnerable to the Blight, and another one hardy to it? What made one person survive the Joining, and another one perish? What made one person’s blood different from another’s? 

Or was it in the blood at all? Maybe it was something else. Some quality of the spirit, the same thing that made some children mages and spared others, perhaps. What made spirits different? Maybe Justice would have known, but Justice was gone. Justice was gone because of her. She and Yvanne pretended like it was because of Anders, but really it was because of her. Anders was gone because of her, too. What a farce. What a ridiculous, ugly farce. It was a wonder Yvanne didn’t hate her. It was all such a wonder, the fact that they still loved each other, such a wonder. It made her  _ exhausted. _

But what else was she going to do, with the time left to her? This was all she was good at. 

Death’s child could do this one thing. She couldn’t do everything that was asked of her, not even most things. But maybe she could do this. Just this one thing. Just this one.

—

The thing about their arguments was that they really weren’t all that frequent. Most of the time they got along fine. Most of the time they lay down together, and rose up together, and kissed each other fondly. And it was not the most exciting of all possible lives, but wasn’t that what they’d fought for? Most days, when she was with Yvanne, Loriel could half-believe herself happy.

The problem was that it was always the same argument.

Yvanne would drink too much, and Loriel wouldn’t say anything, because it wasn’t her place. Yvanne would always do exactly what Yvanne wanted, and all attempts to prevent her would be ultimately fruitless. It still put Loriel on edge. So every time Yvanne brought it up—she only did it when she was drunk—Loriel was already on edge, so who could fault her for reacting the way she did?

“We could leave all this behind,” Yvanne would say. It was what she always said, as though wheedling would do it, as though she could wear her down. And usually Loriel would demure and conciliate. She’d always been so good at it.

But today she lost her temper. “That is not an option,” she snapped. “I’m not like you. I don’t give up on things.”

As soon as she said it she held her breath, waiting to see Yvanne draw back in hurt and offense. But instead she just rolled her eyes.

“That’s not even true,” Yvanne said. “You’ve given up on lots of things. You’ve given up on almost everything.”

Loriel stiffened. “Just what, exactly, have I given up on?”

Yvanne made a broad, flicking gesture around the room. “What  _ haven’t _ you given up on?” She started counting off on her fingers. “The rest of the world. This Keep. Everyone we ever knew.”

Her mind went instantly to Anders.  _ You gave up on him, too,  _ she thought poisonously.  _ Faster than I did.  _ But Yvanne wasn’t done. 

“You know you keep accusing me of running away,” she said sardonically. “But notice how I’m still here. I stayed. I never ran, I  _ always  _ stayed with you. It was always, only, ever, you.”

_ You wanted to run, though,  _ Loriel thought.  _ You wanted to.  _

“All I ever wanted was a home in the world, with you,” Yvanne said. She’d said it before. Many times. “But you’re not with me.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Loriel said, exasperated. It was a lie. “I haven’t gone anywhere.”

“You have, though.”

_ No more than you have,  _ she thought. It was almost as though Yvanne didn’t see her at all, when she looked at her. What  _ did  _ she see? 

“All I ever wanted was to be with you,” Yvanne repeated distantly. “There wasn’t room for anything else.”

_ But I am with you!  _ She had to say it out loud, but her throat was so tight. She had to say it. She had to. If she could just— “But I am with you,” she echoed. “I’m  _ here. _ I’m not gone.”

“Not  _ yet.”  _ Yvanne put her hands over her face. “Maker, I’m so afraid. All the time I’m afraid.”

A cold pit of ice dropped into Loriel’s stomach. This was  _ not  _ a standard part of The Argument. “Afraid. You’re afraid of me.” Was it so shocking? Everyone else was afraid of her. She had made herself frightening. She had done it on purpose.

Yvanne’s head snapped up. “ _ Of  _ you? You bloody idiot—I’m afraid  _ for  _ you! I’m afraid I’m going to walk in on you in a pool of your own blood and won’t be able to bring you back. I’ve researched so many advanced healing spells, just in case, but it might not end up mattering. You can’t bring back the dead.” 

“I’m not going to die,” Loriel scoffed. “Not any time soon, anyway.”

“You can’t know that.”

_ As many as thirty? As few as five? _

“I know it as much as anyone can know anything,” she retorted. “I know what I’m doing. I’m not taking any undue risks.”

“Now that’s rich!” Yvanne said scornfully. “That might be the boldest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

Now  _ that  _ got under Loriel’s skin. What right did she have to say that? And to say it as though it was self-evident. As though Loriel were simply being obstinate in not acknowledging it. As though it were anyone’s business but her own what she did with her own life and her own body.

“You don’t own me,” she said, too harshly. “I own me.”

“Wasn’t saying I did,” Yvanne muttered. 

“No, I rather think you were,” Loriel said icily. “It isn’t what you said, but it is what you meant.”

Yvanne huffed, threw her hands up slightly. “Excuse me for suggesting that people with lives as tangled up together as ours might owe each other something!”

_ Then maybe they shouldn’t have gotten so tangled. _

“And I owe you what, exactly?” she said instead. “To do with myself as  _ you  _ will, simply because you don’t trust me?”

Yvanne took a long time to respond. Then, quietly, “I don’t often ask you for things. But I’m asking you for this. Please.”

Loriel wanted to ask her what in the Maker-forsaken void she was talking about. Did Yvanne think Loriel would be any different outside the comfortable confines of Vigil’s Keep? Did she think the poison was in the flagstones?

For a brief moment she considered it. Abandoning her work, come what may. The Calling would take them some day, and she would never know  _ which  _ day—only that when it took one of them, it would take them both. 

She thought about the great wide worlds, its endless sky, its infinite varieties. It choked her with its vastness. Who would she be out there?

“No,” she said eventually. “No, I’m sorry. I can’t do that.” 

“Right,” Yvanne muttered, in the tone that meant the argument was over. It was the answer she’d been expecting. “Course you can’t.”

Loriel shrugged helplessly. She couldn’t. She was sorry, she was. But she really, really couldn’t.

—

Her newest idea was to test everything on rats. Surely it would have better results than trying to recreate the Blight in a glass vial. The Wardens had a vial of Archdemon blood, which had to be added dropwise to darkspawn blood, along with a dozen other things, to function in the Joining. She could infect the rats, and study them, try to cure them. She would regret their deaths, but it would all be worth it in the end.

A part of her knew she didn’t understand the Blight well enough to even bother with the rats. But she was so tired of failing. After all, Avernus had most of his success with live subjects.

Catching the rats was the hard part, requiring an elaborate series of paralysis glyphs and sense crystals. Then there was the matter of keeping them contained, fed, and watered. She spent weeks figuring out some way to manage the rats, all the time her mind wandering, such that the work of a few hours stretched into a full week.

In the end it didn’t matter. All the rats she infected with Blight died right away, and she didn’t know why. Had she miscalculated the dose? Were rats fundamentally different from people, in some way? But animals could be blighted, so that couldn’t be the case. Could one of the lower animals be made into a broodmother? Could rat-darkspawn be created? 

The thought of trying to get more rats to try and find out was more than she could bear. She sat splayed in her chair, wondering if perhaps she could find a breeding pair and have them produce offspring for her, but in order to make  _ that  _ work she would need to figure out some kind of accelerated growth spell. It was surely doable, in theory, but it would involve creation magic, a field she knew nearly nothing about. 

(Yvanne knew about creation magic. Yvanne had promised to help her with this, once. She had  _ promised.) _

So she abandoned the idea entirely, and returned to glass vials. Months of effort, wasted.

She sat back in her chair, closed her eyes. Tired. So tired. 

_ You don’t have to do this,  _ Yvanne had said.  _ I’m doing this for you,  _ Loriel had said. So many times she had said that.

And it was true. It was! She was doing this for her, for the both of them. For all the Wardens. For all the people of Thedas. Because she was the Hero of Ferelden, and a piss-poor one at that, and she owed this to them. And to her Wardens. And to Yvanne, and to herself.

It was true. Wasn’t it? It was. It was! She was doing this for her. For everyone, but really just for the two of them. Who gave a damn about anyone else? The world had turned its back on them, over and over. Loriel had struggled so hard to save them, and were they grateful? They weren’t. Was it so wrong to want to do something for the one she loved?

(If Yvanne really loved her she would have been grateful. If she really loved her she would have supported her. If she really loved her she would have been able to  _ see—) _

—

That year had been a late winter followed by an early summer, and Loriel nearly missed the whole spring.

Months later (who knew how many). The same argument.

Yvanne had said:  _ How do you think I feel? _

_ How  _ you  _ feel,  _ Loriel thought scornfully. “How you feel!” she said, not nearly as scornfully. “It’s always about you, somehow. Always about Yvanne and what Yvanne wants and how I can give it to her, that’s always been the story. Maybe if you really loved me—”

She broke off. That wasn’t fair. It wasn't fair and it wasn't true. Yvanne loved her. Loriel loved her back.  _ That  _ much was true. That was the one eternal constant of the universe.

It wasn’t fair and it wasn't true, and when Loriel could think straight she remembered it. But she was so tired, so exhausted that the world bent and twisted before her eyes and she couldn't tell truth from darkspawn blood.

She pinched the bridge of her nose . “I’m...I’m sorry. I’m not thinking straight. I didn’t mean that.”

Yvanne seemed to soften. More than anything Loriel ached for comfort. Not even magic. A touch would do. She was reminded of the time at Redcliffe, when she had first done blood magic, and all she had wanted was reassurance that everything could be alright. Yvanne hadn’t given it then.

“You’re right. You  _ aren’t  _ thinking straight,” she said, not giving it now. “So let me know when you are.”

Usually at this point Loriel would storm off in a huff to go work, and in a few hours she would come back and everything would be forgiven. Because that was what love was about, wasn’t it? It was about pain. It was about forgiveness despite the pain. It was about the choice to love and forgive and forget the pain. But this time it was Yvanne who managed to storm away first, except she didn’t storm. She walked calmly and closed the door quietly, not in anger, but resignation. Loriel was left alone in their chambers, the last place where they still shared a life.

_ (Maybe if you really loved me—) _

No, that wasn’t true, Yvanne loved her. ( _ But she couldn’t see her anymore _ .)

Loriel needed to sit down, but there were so many articles of clothing on the nearest chair that she sat on the bed (their well-used bed, that had so delighted her when this had all begun) instead. And even sitting took too much energy, so she lay back. Maybe she could sleep for a while. Just a little while, so she could think straight.

But sleep didn’t come. Her racing thoughts were wide awake, and hungry, and had no pity for her.

She had always been afraid that she wasn’t good enough for beautiful, vivacious, lovely Yvanne. That one of these days Yvanne was going to figure it out and leave her. For a long time she’d been holding her breath, waiting for the blow.

But maybe that wasn’t it. Maybe it wasn’t that she wasn’t  _ good enough  _ for Yvanne. Maybe it was that she was just all wrong for her ( _ wrong wrong wrong,  _ it slithered through her mind like crawling worms in the dirt), maybe they only fit together at all because they’d grown together like the intertwining roots of trees. She thought of vines twisted together so tightly they had fused ( _ parasites, living off each other, sucking the life out of each other, unable to survive any other way) _

Now they’d traded the Circle for the Wardens. And love born of terror, perpetuated in bondage, what was that worth?

What did they have in common, anyway? Their whole lives. Their magic. What else?

She stared into the darkness, wishing she knew some spell to end all thought.

_ (What else? What else? What else?) _

—

It wasn’t about the blood. It was about the sacrifice.

In that sense, to call it blood magic was a misnomer. 

You can’t get something for nothing. This was the oldest rule in the book, from back before there were books, before writing, before language. It was as simple as anything, and it was as true of entropy magic as of blood magic. 

Loriel knew all about entropy. The rule of entropy was this:  _ you can’t get something for nothing. _

That was why it was impossible to draw her own blood, store it, restore herself, and use it later. Blood stored in a vial, divorced from the pain and loss it had caused, had no power. The blood itself was inert. It was the pain that mattered. 

She had to suffer. It had to be this way. It could never have been any other way.

Life was pain. It wasn’t  _ all  _ pain. But it was pain, sure enough. And pain was life, for only living things could suffer. For every sting of the blade, she knew herself to be alive. Here she was in the depths of the underground, nearer to the deep roads (the darkspawn) than to the sunlight, but while she hurt she lived.

Yvanne didn’t understand that. Yvanne was a healer. She didn’t understand the necessity of pain. She never had.

But you can’t get something for nothing. That was the rule. (Loriel knew all about rules. She had always been so good at following the rules. So, so good, and what had it gotten her?)

Her current project involved attempts to refine blight from blood—her own, a darkspawn’s, and an archdemon’s. Each Warden-Commander was entrusted with a vial of Archdemon blood, a single drop of which was used in the Joining cup. Loriel had it here, a measly quantity of it. It ought to have been refilled when Urthemiel had fallen, but nobody had been there to tell her to take its blood. She hadn’t known she was supposed to do that, and now here she was wasting the small quantity she had away on her useless experiments.  _ (But that could be a good thing, that could mean that when she used it all up there would be no more Wardens and if there were no Wardens that meant there was no Warden-Commander and if there was no need for a Warden-Commander then Loriel could—go where? Do what?) _

She wanted to understand what made Warden’s blood different from darkspawn blood, and what made both of them different from archdemon’s blood. She had for days now been heating, distilling, refluxing, heating again, countless hours spent staring at glassware full of the murky stuff, ( _ half-wondering what it would feel like to take the vials and smash them on the table and feel the shards of glass in her skin _ ), because surely it couldn’t be a matter of mere concentration. Darkspawn were not Wardens with more Blight inside them. And Archdemons were something different entirely.

Why were all the archdemons dragons? What did dragons have to do with Blight? But no, not dragons—old gods. But why were the old gods in the form of dragons? The Chantry would say that they were false gods of no significance, but even if that were true, why would beings clearly much more powerful than mere animals take those forms? Urthemiel had been the god of beauty; the Architect had been his high priest. Loriel had slain Urthemiel. She had driven a sword—

( _ she barely knew how to use it, it should have been Yvanne, it should have been her, none of this was meant for her, that was why she was down here in the dark, because she had taken what rightfully ought to have been somebody else’s, because she had transgressed, and now she was being rightfully punished _ )

—through its skull. She remembered how its bones had cracked. It had already been most of the way to dead by the time she finished it off. She’d hardly contributed to its killing at all.

_ (she’d picked up the sword, nearly as long as she was tall, because she happened to be nearby, it had just happened, she hadn’t meant to—) _

Did the Architect know that? Did he know she had slain his god? Did he still regard the archdemon to be his god? It was no more corrupted than he was. (Would that be Loriel’s fate? Was that the fate of every Warden, to someday become the monsters they fought? What was the difference between them and the monsters, anyway? That wasn’t so bad. She’d been a monster all her life, what would be the difference?)

The bright blade bit into her scarred skin. The veins there were weakening. She would have to pick a new place to cut, soon. Her blood ran hot and warm down her skin. Loriel incanted. Nothing happened.

_ (What was the Architect’s name? What had he looked like? Who had he been when he had been a man?) _

She changed the words of the incantation, then the pronunciation. She changed how she held her fingers. She cast again and again. Nothing happened.

_ (He deserved it though, that’s what he got, for breaking the rules. Rule-breakers had to be punished, that was the rule. That’s what he, what she deserved. That’s what she deserved, for expecting something for nothing.) _

Her blood clotted and the flow stopped. It still hurt, but was that enough? No, it wasn’t, she could tell. The pain was necessary but not sufficient. She needed to bleed to cast spells like this, or else they’d always fail, and she’d have no one but herself to blame.

The knife bit into her flesh again.

_ (Yvanne didn’t understand, of course she didn’t, how could she?) _

She didn’t feel the knife slip from her numb fingers, and though she felt herself slipping, felt herself fall, by the time she hit the floor she had already slipped into something like sleep—but not peace.

She dreamt herself in the Black City, wandering its winding streets and high towers. She knew only that she was desperately searching for something—someone?—that she couldn’t find. When she looked down at her hands they were claws, the bulging veins there black with the same Blight that ran through the gutters and oozed down the walls. It flooded the streets and rose higher and higher, up to her hips and shoulders, in her mouth and her eyes and over her head, and all was black.

—

Loriel woke slowly. First she became aware of her body and the bed it was lying in. At first she didn’t notice anything unusual, and then she did—the absence of pain. Nothing ached or throbbed or stung. She felt better than she’d felt in many months. She was suffused with the vague sense that whatever dreadful thing had been happening, it was over now, if it had ever even happened. Perhaps it had only been a terrible dream.

For a while she let herself float peacefully in the dim twilight of half-sleep, aware enough to relish the glorious lack-of-pain. But finally she had no choice but to open her eyes, and remember everything.

Yvanne sat sleeping in the wooden chair besides the bed. Her cheek pressed against her shoulder, her chin on her chest. It looked singularly uncomfortable. Loriel wondered why she’d sat there instead of getting into bed with her. She reached out and touched her gently on the elbow. 

Yvanne started, her eyes flying open, then relaxing. There were dark circles under her eyes, and they were red-rimmed; she’d been crying, but had stopped some hours ago, presumably when she’d fallen asleep.

“You’re awake,” she managed, “That’s good.”

Loriel coughed hoarsely. Her throat was dry. “How long was I…?”

Yvanne glanced out the window. It was dark, with no trace of either daybreak or sunset. The candles were all extinguished, and all that illuminated the room was a trio of Fade-wisps fluttering around Yvanne’s head like a halo, casting her in an eerie greenish light. “I don’t know. Most of a full day, I think.”

A glass of water stood on the bedside table. Loriel drained it, leaning on her elbow. She opened her mouth to ask what happened, and then closed it. Some of her memory was trickling back, as though after a hard night of drinking. _ You bloody idiot, I’m afraid for you! I’m afraid I’m going to walk in on you in a pool of your own blood and won’t be able— _

Instead she lay back. She knew better than to insult her by apologizing. The fact that she was even thinking of apologizing annoyed her.  _ I’m the one that almost died, and somehow  _ I _ need to comfort  _ her _ ?  _

Eventually Yvanne said, “How do you feel?”

Loriel thought about it. “Good, actually,” she said. “Better than I’ve been. Much better.” Whatever exact combination of healing spells and potions Yvanne had administered, it had really done the trick. She felt like she could think clearly for the first time in...she didn’t even know how long. She was herself again.

She had the sudden traitorous thought—all along Yvanne could have helped her like this, and for whatever reason, she hadn’t.

“That’s good.”

What a funny path life took. Only a handful of years ago their positions had been reversed, and it had been Loriel sitting and fretting at the bedside, feeling helpless and afraid. She didn’t feel helpless or afraid now. She just felt tired—clear-eyed, but so tired.

“Thank you.”

At that Yvanne couldn’t take it anymore. She drew a rattled half-sob of a breath, and suppressed a hiccup. “‘ _ Thank you’?  _ What was I supposed to do, leave you there?”

It occurred to Loriel how exhausted Yvanne looked. Not just tired, but...older. It could have been only the flickering Fade-light, but—some of the lines on her face looked new. Were they really new, or had Loriel just not been paying attention? Would she have turned to her, years down the road, and been surprised to see an aged face looking back at her?

All at once the guilt crashed over her, so intense it made her nauseous.

It would have been easier if she’d loved her any less.

_ Did you love me for me _ , she thought, or _ because there was no one else? _ And that thought hurt.

Then she thought,  _ did I love you for you?  _ And that thought hurt much worse.

“Loriel, I…” Yvanne swallowed, staring at her laced fingers between her knees. “Loriel, I can’t do this anymore. Something has to change.”

_ You’re right,  _ Loriel thought, deciding.  _ It does. _

She struggled into a sitting position, and then realized it wasn’t much of a struggle. She was only stiff from sleeping so long. She scooted out of bed and found herself shivering in only a billowing nightgown. She didn’t have to look long for her robe; Yvanne had put it in the top drawer of the northmost chest of drawers. Her feet were cold on the stone floor, but she could live with that.

She went to her desk, rummaged for parchment and ink and quill. It was really more Yvanne’s desk these days, and she kept it in order. She stood as she wrote; the document would not need to be long. It only required her signature, and her seal.

“Do you know where my signet ring is?” Loriel asked.

“Upper right drawer,” Yvanne said automatically. She hadn’t spoken or moved, had only watched Loriel move about the room with uncertain eyes.

She found the ring. “Thank you.” Sealing wax lay in the same container, dark burgundy stuff; blue was more fitting for the Warden-Commander, but red would do. She dripped the wax onto the bottom of the document and pressed her ring into it, leaving an impression of the double-headed griffon symbol of the Wardens. The ink had had time to dry while she’d fumbled with the wax.

She read over what she wrote, once, twice, thrice, just to make sure. But her mind was clear, and short of letting it sit overnight—not an option—she was sure she’d covered all her legal bases.

Yvanne finally rose. “Loriel?” she said hesitantly. “What is that?”

Loriel rolled up the parchment and handed it to her before she had a chance to lose her nerve. 

“It is a legal document, signed and sealed by the lawfully appointed Warden-Commander of the Grey Wardens of Ferelden, Arlessa of Amaranthine, and Lady of Soldier’s Peak,” said Loriel. “It states that Warden-Lieutenant Yvanne Amell is abroad on official Grey Warden business of highest priority, and that any attempts to impede her free movements will be met with swift reprisal by the Grey Wardens of Ferelden and the Ferelden Crown. And there’s some more legal jargon at the bottom if you want to review that.” She raised her chin. “I can’t promise it will keep you safe from anything out there, far from it, but it should make public life as a mage on her own a much easier prospect.”

_ I can’t do this anymore,  _ Yvanne had said. It was her favorite gambit. It meant— _ I’m doing as I’ve decided. Do whatever you want, but my course is set.  _ Most times in their life it had been a bluff—until Amaranthine.

Well, no more.

“I don’t...what?” Yvanne looked at the parchment, then at her. “I don’t understand.”

“That’s just it, isn’t it?” Loriel said tiredly. “You don’t understand. And you never will.”

She knew it for the truth as she said it. For the nearly twenty years that they had known each other, for all the things they shared, for all that they had walked within each other's very souls, Yvanne would  _ never  _ understand. What did Yvanne know about darkness, about decay? Yvanne grew gardens and built castles in the sky, content to pretend that the world ( _ their bodies (them))  _ weren’t falling apart. Yvanne would never understand Loriel, and Loriel—it had become now blindingly obvious—would never understand Yvanne.

Loriel would never understand Yvanne, and she was tired of trying. 

For an endless, awful moment they stood suspended in time. Yvanne stared at the parchment, the wheels in her head turning and creaking as it dawned on her, the full significance of what Loriel meant. In that long moment, it dawned on Loriel, too, the magnitude of it. She was standing on a shore, beholding a massive wave rising up to swallow all that she knew, and it had not crashed down on her head yet, but it would, any second now, it would.

“Are you telling me to go?” Yvanne said. Just to make sure. Just in case she’d misunderstood.

_ Ask me to come with you, _ Loriel thought then, desperately, as though that was going to save them. If she only asked, Loriel’s resolve would break, and she would have said yes. She would have followed her to the ends of the earth, if only because the prospect of living without her had now become terrifyingly real.

But Yvanne didn’t ask.

_ She didn’t ask,  _ Loriel would tell herself later.  _ She never asked. _

Loriel would remember for the rest of her life the sight of Yvanne clutching the parchment and tearing out of the room. Loriel didn’t know why she would go after this—only that it would be far away, and that she was unlikely to ever see her again. Because she understood as well as Loriel did, what this meant for them—that the farce was finally over, the soap-bubble of their shared dreams well and truly popped. As it had always been destined to be.

For Loriel’s basic nature was that of entropy, and that meant she understood the nature of all things was to, eventually, cease. Every mechanism must someday wind down, and every life must eventually extinguish, and every love must eventually fizzle. You could run and run and run, but entropy would always get you in the end. Loriel had tried denying it, had tried cheating it, but it was no good.

Because you couldn’t get something for nothing.  _ That  _ was what Yvanne couldn’t seem to understand.

And that was why it had to be this way. That was why it had to end.


	12. Chapter 12

Yvanne fled.

Her loose robe tangled among her legs, and her slippers did nothing to protect her clumsy feet from the hewn stone of the castle’s passageways, but her only thought was to escape. More than once she slammed her shoulder into a wall, hard enough that it would bruise. She made it to the stables and was wrestling her favored rowan mare into a saddle when it occurred to her just what it was, that she was sacrificing. She was leaving _ everyone _behind. Didn’t she owe it to them to explain?

No—she didn’t owe anyone _ shit, _she decided, and anyway, she couldn’t stand the shame, couldn’t stand to be cared about, couldn’t stand to be loved. Her first and only need was to be far away from here, immediately. 

The mare was recalcitrant, feeling its rider’s disturbed mood in that careful way horses had. Yvanne calmed it with a spell, all but took the mare’s mind with her so-called healing magic, and as soon as she mounted, it was off. Yvanne could barely stay upright as it bolted. Belatedly she realized that the main gate was down, and barely in time cast a spell of pure force. The gate exploded open, and only magic kept the mare from panicking and throwing her.

She clung to the horse’s neck, galloping down the road in the dead of night. What road, she couldn’t say, only that it lead away from Vigil’s Keep. The air rushed past her, stealing her warmth, deafening her senses.

All she could think of was Loriel’s face. _ Are you telling me to go? _And the long, meaningful silence that had followed.

Every time she remembered it—and this was every handful of seconds, now—it hurt all over again.

She had tried so _ hard! _ She had done everything right! She had supported her at every turn, even when it had been hard, even when it hurt. Because they had been through so much together, because their lives were each other’s, because this thing between them _ mattered. _

And this thing between them, wrested from the jaws of Chantry and Circle both, this beautiful shining thing so precious and so rare so hard won and mysterious—Loriel had thrown it away like it was nothing. And Yvanne had let her.

How could she just throw it away?

How could it mean nothing?

How? How? How? The question rattled around in her head like a deafening echo, so total and central to her attention, that she failed to notice the lowered quality of the road ahead—how could she, in the dark?—and the mare’s leg disappeared into a sinkhole. She barely heard the snap of broken bone as she was thrown from the panicking mare.

Pain exploded in her shoulder and head. She’d landed not exactly well, but not badly, either—she was still alive. She sat catching her breath, feeling the pain radiate from her shoulder across her whole body, barely noticed the layers of skin scraped away in the fall. The mare was worse off; its eyes rolled wildly in pain and bewilderment, laying on its side.

She healed herself first, then went to the horse. Normally an injury like this was death to the animal; the bone would never heal right. Even magical healing was essentially normal healing but faster. She was a decent healer, but not amazing; the shoulder she’d just healed was still stiff and smarting, and probably would be that way for a while. It would have been kindest to let the poor animal die.

“Sorry, old girl,” she said, gathering a cohort of wisps to help her.

After several minutes of struggle, the mare was up again. The leg hadn’t healed quite properly, and the horse’s eyes were filmed with pain. But there were spells for that.

She remounted, and rode hard. The mare didn’t stop or slow or stumble, enveloped as she was with layers and layers of creation magic. Yvanne didn’t know how long the magic or the mare would last, and she didn’t care.

By the time the sun broke over the horizon, she had driven the animal at full gallop for nearly the whole night, and no amount of magic could keep it from expiring of exhaustion out from under her.

This time the fall was less abrupt, the poor creature slowing gradually and collapsing. Yvanne narrowly avoided being crushed beneath it, scrambling to heal it again—but there was no hope this time. The mare was dead, and Yvanne couldn’t bring back the dead.

She sat by the side of the road, leaning against the corpse of the mare, and cried. The mare had been a good horse, sweet-tempered and faithful, and for almost no reason at all Yvanne had killed it. Suddenly the mare’s death was the greatest tragedy in the history of all Thedas, made all the worse by the beauty of the sunrise and song of the morning lark. Yvanne sobbed until she couldn’t stand it anymore.

After a while she looked up. The sun had fully risen by now, but the air was still cold. Gradually it dawned on her just what a bad way she was in—half-dressed, not a thing to her name, filthy and tired and hungry, stranded on the highway in the middle of nowhere in particular. The whole ride her head had been filled with the grand emotional tragedies of love and loss and disappointment, but all that faded rapidly, to be replaced by a prosaic, deeply banal fear. 

Whatever was going to become of her?

She looked back the way she’d come. Her whole life was there, her friends, her things, her vocation. Everything she’d built, everything she’d striven for, was back at Vigil’s Keep.

That way was barred to her now.

She could stay here with the dead horse, or she could go on.

Struggling up, she faced the road before her, and began to walk.

—

She walked for most of the morning. By now her thirst had outstripped her hunger. Her throat was parched, and she struggled not to sway as she walked. Even magic was no help; weakened as she was by her own rash foolishness, her mana restored too slowly to be of any use.

When the sun was nearly at its zenith, she heard the creak of wagon wheels and clop of horse’s hooves behind her. 

There was nowhere to go; this section of the road crossed through wide open plains and gently rolling hills. Even if she’d wanted to hide she couldn’t have. She had no sword, no weapon at all, and all her half-forgotten training as an arcane warrior was worthless without one. 

Whatever was coming, she would have to deal with it.

She got out of the road, stepping over the gutter to stand in the grass. A cart leashed to a pair of mules approached. The driver was a round-bellied man dressed not richly, but neither like a peasant. His cart was well-laden, judging by the patient speed his mules walked with.

He slowed as he approached, tugging on the reins. “Ho there, stranger. What circumstance has brought an unaccompanied young lady of such beauty to travel alone and unladen?”

She struggled not to glare at him, looking at the ground. “My business is my own.”

He laughed. “Very well, then! Am I to assume that dead horse I saw some miles behind me was once yours?”

No point in lying. “Yes.”

The merchant sadly shook his head. “Poor creature. What happened to it?”

“It died.”

“Alright, then. I see you have the situation well in hand. I’ll be on my way.”

Electricity surged through her. “W-wait!” she stuttered, swallowing a great deal of pride as she did.

The merchant stopped halfway through flicking the reins.

Yvanne hung her head, humiliated. “Ser, where are you headed, if I may ask?”

“To Highever, my dear.”

“How far is it?”

“Not far, not far. Less than a day at an easy pace, by cart.”

Less than a day. She was closer to Highever than to Vigil’s Keep. Highever would do.

“Could you take me there?”

“I could,” the merchant said. “But how will you make it worth my while?”

She took off one of her amulets. She had bought it in Amaranthine, and Loriel had said it was one of the gaudiest things she’d ever seen, and Yvanne had retorted that surely she had, she’d seen the _ rest _of Yvanne’s jewelry. “Will this do? It’s enchanted.” She went on, half-manic. “It protects the wearer from harm. Ask any enchanter when you get to Highever, they’ll tell you it’s real, I swear.”

The merchant’s eyes glinted as he saw the gem glitter on its chain. “Yes, that will do nicely.” He snatched it up, as though she was going to take it back, and tucked it into his coat. Then he moved over in the driver’s seat to make room for her. “Come and sit by me, young lady. You can enchant me with conversation, as part of your payment for passage.”

She really just wanted to sleep in the back of the cart, but she could tell she had no choice. She took her seat.

“Will you do me the honor of telling me your name?” the merchant said.

“It’s...Leliana,” Yvanne said.

“Leliana. That’s a beautiful name. Is it Orlesian?”

“I dunno. I’ve never been to Orlais.”

That was the right thing to say; the merchant _ had _been to Orlais, and was content to spend the next several minutes telling her all about the glory of the markets of Val Royeux, the colored silks, the fine clothing, the masks and intrigues of it all. While he prattled, Yvanne let herself relax.

“Forgive me—I’ve been rude,” the merchant said, startling her out of her stupor. “You must be weary.”

He offered her a waterskin, dried jerky, and bread that was only somewhat stale. All this she devoured so quickly it hurt going down. The merchant chuckled to see it, and she didn’t have nearly enough energy to be irritated at him for it. She was too busy being grateful.

The food and water granted her enough energy to restore her magical resources; at least enough that she could layer enough creation spells over herself to feel alert and capable again. Subtly, subtly, so as not to alert the merchant. She didn’t need him knowing what she was, Warden or not. She so badly wanted to sleep; the back of the cart was so tempting, there among the sacks of goods. But she didn’t dare sleep, in this stranger’s cart. 

The whole road to Highever he prattled cheerfully about his journeys, requiring only the most token of responses from Yvanne. This was both a blessing and a curse. A blessing, that she didn’t have to do much talking; a curse, that it left her mind free to wander.

_ That’s just it, isn’t it? You don’t understand, and you never will. You never will. You never will. You never— _

“But I’m boring you, aren’t I?” the merchant said jovially.

“No!” she said. “No, I...I’m just tired. How much further to Highever?”

“We’ve just passed the village of Hornbill, so I wager not much longer than an hour,” said the merchant. “Plenty of time, in fact, for you to explain how you managed to escape your Circle.”

Yvanne froze.

“Oh, come now,” said the merchant. “Surely you don’t think me quite so dull as all that. You are a mage, are you not? Don’t try to deny it.”

“What makes you think I’m a mage?”

“I’ve been here and again, I can tell a woman on the run when I see one.”

“That doesn’t mean mage. You don’t know what I’m running from.”

He chuckled. “True, true. Only you stink of lyrium. I wasn’t sure until you came closer, but at this range? No question of what you are, my dear. Come now, tell me where you’ve escaped from? Wycome? Kinloch? Surely not Kirkwall.”

“I didn’t escape,” she said. “I’m a free mage. A Grey Warden.”

The merchant snorted. “I’m sure. I suppose you were there atop Fort Drakon when the Hero of Ferelden slew the Archdemon, too?” 

“I have papers—”

The merchant chuckled. “Papers, hah! Good one. As though I’ve never forged a document in my day. You must think me very stupid—but I assure you, I’m merely old. Now how about telling me the truth?”

Yvanne said nothing. What could she say? She wasn’t in uniform. Right now she wasn’t Warden-Commander Yvanne Amell, local hero to thousands, an imposing Grey Warden who deserved respect. She was underdressed and unkempt and covered in mud. Even she wouldn’t have believed herself.

“Very well,” the merchant harrumphed. “Keep your secrets. Don’t worry, I don’t intend to turn you over to the Templars.”

“You aren’t?”

He smiled at her. “Of course, my silence isn’t free. You can start by turning over the rest of your pretty baubles.”

At first she didn’t know how to respond. “You’re extorting me for jewelry?” she managed, then scoffed. “This stuff’s worthless, you realize.”

The merchant shrugged. “I’d wager they’re all as valuable or more than the one you gave me, as you were so willing to part from it. Come on, now, I gave you a valuable tip about the lyrium smell. You’ll want to find new clothes in Highever, maybe cut your hair. That’ll help hide it.”

Yvanne’s mind raced. The jewelry she’d been wearing when she’d fled, most of it enchanted with runes to make her spirit magic stronger—a lucky thing that she’d fallen asleep still wearing it—was far from worthless. In fact it was probably her only source of income for the foreseeable future. And she had no guarantee that this wretched man with his piggy eyes and curdled smile wouldn’t simply rob her and call the Templars anyway.

She had the legal grounds to challenge them, but since when did Templars mind the law?

“Thinking of killing me with magic, my dear?” the merchant said as her silence stretched on. “I wouldn’t recommend that. My route is well known to many, and I would be missed. Any fool would be able to tell I’d been killed by unnatural means, and that means Templars investigating, and I’m sure you’d prefer to avoid that.”

At that point the cart hit something in the road; something big enough to break the wheel and send the whole thing pitching to the side. The mules brayed and the merchant, swearing, brought them to a halt. He sighed and muttered something about _ always some damn thing _ and _ nobody maintaining the roads properly these days. _

He got out of the driver’s seat and went around to look at the damage. If he had looked carefully, he might have noticed the ridge of earth that had splintered the wheel, with its sharp ninety-degree edges, was clearly unnatural. If he had not been so self-satisfied with his extortion scheme, he might have noticed Yvanne casting the spell that had put it there. And he might have noticed the glyph of paralysis she had placed by the wheel while he had wasted precious moments walking around the side of the cart.

As it was, he did none of those things, and found himself frozen in a half-bent position for the next minute at least.

Yvanne let out a breath.

“That’s not true, you know, about it being obvious you’d been killed by unnatural means,” she said. “I could slit your throat right now, and everybody would assume it was bandits.”

The merchant said nothing. Predictably.

“That was a very stupid thing to do for some jewelry,” she said.

She _ could _have just slit his throat. No one would ever be the wiser, and she’d never have to worry about him again. She could even take his cart, and trade his goods, sell his mules; live on the income for months. If she let him go, she’d always be looking over her shoulder. Maybe get into altercations, with Templars, with others. Maybe have to kill even more people. More probably, get killed herself.

She remembered what it had felt like, to threaten Rolan, to really consider killing a helpless man, and—no, she would not do that.

The paralysis glyph was wearing off. She replaced it with a force cage just in time. The merchant regained the use of his limbs and fell to his knees, beating at the inside of the force cage with both fists. Whatever vile things he was shouting, Yvanne couldn’t hear them.

“Thanks for the tip about the lyrium smell,” she said. “And the food. I wouldn't have been able to cast anything without that. So thank you for that, and the ride, as well.” He couldn’t hear any of it, but she felt the need to say it. 

Yvanne reached into the Fade and drew from it a spirit of Forgetting. It was a small thing, not much more than a wisp, just barely beginning to form an identity as Forgetting rather than an amorphous blob of Fade-stuff. It fluttered around her, curious, eager to take what memories it could. She gently directed it away from herself, towards the merchant. 

She saw the panic in his eyes as he realized what was happening; she supposed he thought she was putting a demon in him, or something heinous like that. The spirit entered him, and he collapsed.

She hoped that the spirit would only take the past couple days from him, recent fresh memories—Yvanne’s face and existence at the least—and not much more. A few weeks at the most. Some larger spirits of this nature could erase a person’s whole life without meaning to. Victims would forget their lives, their names, every skill they’d learned since leaving diapers, ended up as drooling infants blank as the day they were born. It was horrifically sad to behold.

But this wouldn’t happen to the merchant, Yvanne assured herself. The spirit was small. A few weeks at the most.

The force cage faded, but the merchant didn’t move. He’d be unconscious for some time. Best that Yvanne be far away from here by then.

While he lay in the dirt she retrieved her amulet, then rifled through the contents of the cart. He carried mostly fine fabrics. She took the finest she could easily carry, and unharnessed one of the mules. It gazed at her with what she imagined was reproach. The merchant would only need one mule, with his lightened cart-load. He’d be fine. Confused, sure, but fine. It was more than what he deserved, for what he tried to do to her.

She _ ought _to have killed him, she thought, leading the mule away. Vigil’s Keep had softened her, weakened her. It had made her forget what people were like.

She wouldn’t be forgetting again.

—

In Highever she sold the bolts of fabric and the mule first, just to be rid of them. It all came to far less than she’d hoped, and she came away thinking she ought to have bargained more, but it was enough for a change of clothes and a room at the first inn she saw. Not a nice room, but she got a hot meal and a bath in the bargain. There she scrubbed herself until she was sure the lyrium smell was gone. She’d grown so used to it that she’d forgotten how acrid-sharp it smelled to others, though she could only hope that the innkeeper and the merchants she’d traded with hadn’t recognized it. She thought about cutting her hair to be sure, but couldn’t bear it. Surely this _ one _thing she could keep.

There she finally slept, in her shift and all her jewelry. Whatever dreams haunted her, she could not recall in the morning.

When she woke, evening had fallen again. The dark, the unfamiliar room, and the hard mattress disoriented her—this wasn’t her home. This wasn’t her bed. Why did her shoulder hurt? What had happened to her feet?Then she remembered.

_ You _ don’t _ understand, and you never will. _

Maker, what had she done? Had the others noticed her absence yet? It had been nearly a full day, but she sometimes went many days without seeing those she counted friends. It might be a week or more until they all knew she’d fled. What would Loriel tell them? Would she tell them anything at all? Was she even thinking about her at all anymore?

She half-snarled and stumbled off the sagging mattress—and immediately slammed her foot into a bedside table so hard it splintered her big toenail. 

She swore, bending to heal it—and hesitated. What if somebody saw? What if calling on magic at all made it easier for someone to spot her for what she was? 

But she had Loriel’s parchment...didn’t she?

She rifled through her few possessions; the irrevocably ruined slippers, the torn and muddy house robe, the one bolt of cloth she wasn’t able to sell, a leather belt hung with pouches (mostly missing, now) of herbs, the plain linen dress she’d bought, though who knew if it would even fit her...

No parchment.

It was hardly surprising. She’d haphazardly jammed the document into her belt, and since then had fallen off a horse, twice. Who knew how long ago she’d lost it?

A heaviness settled in her chest, a weight like being deep underground. Now she didn’t have even the flimsiest of legal protections. And worse, she didn’t have Loriel’s handwriting, the only physical trace she had of her.

She hadn’t even read the full text before fleeing.

Loriel had done this to her. Had turned her out with nothing but a sheaf of parchment to her name. Had somehow foolishly believed that Loriel’s written word would protect her. The sheer arrogance of it all! To the void with her, to the void with her stupid bloody parchment. If Yvanne had still had it she would have burned it to a crisp. Her fists trembled, her eyes burned with fury, but she pushed herself up. To the void with her!

Yes, she was alone, she had almost nothing, and if the Templars found her, they would surely drag her back to Kinloch, and who knew what they’d do with her there. But she was damn well still alive, and she was going to _ live. _ And if Loriel didn’t want to do it with her, that was _ her _fucking problem.

And, before the cloying darkness could settle in her chest again, Yvanne went downstairs to get a drink. 


	13. Chapter 13

After Yvanne had gone, Loriel sat for a while on their—just hers, now—bed, listening. The elaborate system of sense-crystals was now mostly defunct, but only mostly. She could almost  _ feel  _ Yvanne leave her life, out the door and down the stairs, through the corridors and passageways and to the stables. She felt, rather than heard, the explosion of the front gate, that indicated Yvanne’s final departure from even her imagined sight.

If she knew her at all, if she had ever known her, Yvanne would run all night. And she would never see her again.

Once she was certain Yvanne was beyond her reach, Loriel rose and dressed. She drank the rest of the water, and moved the chair Yvanne had slept in back to its proper place in the corner. She combed her hair and washed her face in the basin.

The whole time she thought— _ it was for the best. _

The floor was littered with empty potion bottles; these she gathered up for washing and reuse. She was forever breaking glassware in her lab, and it was always handy to have replacements.

_ It was always going to be like this. _

She was surprised to find how little sadness she felt. This ending was, if anything, perfectly predictable. All this time she’d been waiting for the inevitable to happen, and finally she’d realized that she didn’t need to let it happen  _ to  _ her. She didn’t have to be the type of person that things _ happened  _ to anymore. She could make them happen herself.

_ It couldn’t have been any other way. _

She couldn’t imagine herself spending much time in the bedroom anymore. The cot she had in her lab wasn’t too uncomfortable; she could sleep there. But she didn’t quite feel like leaving yet.

With the area around the bed cleared, she wandered over to the desk. She capped the inkwell, cleaned the pen, cleared away the parchment. Then she noticed the dust. Yvanne used to use the desk almost nightly, but she supposed that lately she’d been lapsed in her duties as acting Warden-Commander. No wonder. Yvanne had outgrown that shell long ago.

She gave the room a good magically-assisted dusting. The burst of wind magic knocked one of the decorative figurines off the mantlepiece, and she let it fall and smash on the ground. She didn’t know why. She’d liked that one. 

Really, this was good for the both of them. It was no good for Loriel to shirk her duties as Commander as entirely as she had. She’d need to go back to handling more and more of them. She’d done so before—she would do it again. 

It couldn’t have happened any other way. She knew that. She accepted it in her heart. And really, she felt perfectly serene.

After all. It was always going to have come to this.

Loriel sat in the high-backed wooden chair behind the desk and exhaled slowly.

Then she put her head down on the desk and sobbed.

She didn’t stop until well past daybreak.

—

Someone was knocking on the door. Loriel raised her head blearily from the desk. Her face felt sticky and puffy and itchy, and her head throbbed. She hadn’t been asleep, exactly, but there were only so many hours in a day that one could cry before one simply ran out of tears. For a long time she’d simply lain her head in her arms and mourned.

She would get over it. She would. She had to believe that she would. But first she would mourn.

But there was still someone knocking on the door.

A flash of irritation surged through her. Didn’t people in this damn Keep know not to bother her?

“Commander?” came the worried voice. Sigrun.

What did  _ she  _ want? Since when did Sigrun ever sound so concerned for her? For a split second, Loriel considered answering. What if it was something important? Yvanne was gone now. There was nobody to handle an emergency, if one did crop up.

But the thought of being seen by anybody in the state that she was in, puffy-eyed and splotchy, proved unbearable. Loriel stayed silent until Sigrun went away. She did not let out the breath that she was holding until she heard the Legionnaire’s receding footsteps.

Only then did she realize that when Sigrun had said  _ Commander,  _ she had meant Yvanne.

Of course.  _ She _ was the one people saw every day, and the one who had suddenly disappeared in the night. Did any of them even remember that Loriel was still here?

She wouldn’t blame them if they didn’t. She hadn’t made much of an effort to remind them.

Her stomach growled. How long had it been since she’d eaten? No wonder she was starting to feel so lightheaded. She cursed her inability to sustain herself on magic alone, and resolved to learn how before she proceeded with her research. She’d have to; without anybody bringing her food, she was liable to starve to death.

There would be a lot of things she would have to change. Every time she thought of one, the misery rose up in her again. Already she was tired of tears. How long was this going to go on for? Her heart lay so heavy in her chest that it took palpable effort not to collapse on the nearest surface and let darkness take her. 

What had she done? How was she going to manage herself, let alone the entire Keep? Vaguely she was aware that there must have been so many things that Yvanne had been taking care of that Loriel had no idea about, things Loriel wouldn’t know about until months later when they blew up in her face. 

Her eyes fell back to the desk, smooth and huge and oaken. She'd been so pleased with it when she’d first arrived here and realized that it was hers, after years of working on pathetic student desks in the circle. Now it crouched in the center of the room like a carnivorous beast, ready to snatch her hand off if she approached it.

No, she realized. It was no good. She’d never sort things out. What she really needed to do was promote somebody to Yvanne’s old post and make  _ them  _ handle it. Nathaniel Howe, perhaps. He was responsible, wasn't he? It didn’t even have to be him. It could be anybody, really. She didn't care who.

But in order to go out there and promote somebody, she would have to submit to the ordeal of being perceived, and she could hardly do that in her current state. She didn't even know any spells that might have helped. Her magic only ever made things worse; that’s what it was  _ for.  _ Yvanne was always the one who had spells that made things better.

Perhaps—if she could just keep it together for a few hours—

Her stomach growled again, and when she tried to stand her head spun.

No, she couldn’t wait a few hours. She was going to have to go out there.

She combed her hair again, cursorily, splashed water on her face, and looked at herself in the disc of polished copper. She looked horrible. Pathetic. 

She bit her lip, hesitating with her hand an inch away from the doorknob, and then let herself out.

—

In the end she proved too great a coward. Not three steps out her door, she turned herself invisible. She needed to face the Keep, but she’d do it on her own terms, when she was ready. They would perceive her then, and not before.

She drifted through the passageways, a ghost in her own castle. It wasn’t long until she saw somebody, though not anyone she recognized. The stairways were narrow enough here that she had to wait for the young man to pass before moving on. If he had any clue she was there, he didn’t let on. 

Varel, she thought, she had to find Seneschal Varel, he always knew exactly how to take care of things. Then she remembered that he was dead—he had been dead for years. Who had been his replacement? Garavel? Garahel? Something like that. She didn’t remember his face, but the Seneschal always wore a little pin featuring a winged quill design.

She had to wander an embarrassingly long time before she found him, in his own private office—much shabbier than her own—and then only because she caught another Warden leaving just as she arrived. She entered invisibly just as the door closed, then realized she’d landed herself in an awkward situation. The Seneschal was settling down to read something, his brow creased in worry.

Suppressing a sigh, she knocked on his door, from the inside. “Yes?” he said distractedly, apparently not noticing that the knock had come from the wrong side of the door.

She turned visible again, hands clasped primly behind her back. To Garahel’s credit, he suppressed most of his shock, and only jerked a little bit.

“C-Commander?” he said.

“Yes,” said Loriel. “I hope I didn’t startle you.”

“No, not at all,” he lied. “How may I be of assistance?”

“Warden Amell has vacated her post. I will need someone to replace her.”

His eyes widened. “Vacated her post?”

“Yes,” said Loriel, and didn’t elaborate. “Take whatever steps you need to take to promote Warden Howe to her position.”

“Warden Howe? Ser, er—”

She pierced him with an icy look. She was growing tired of his stammering.“Yes, Seneschal?”

“I’m afraid that Warden Howe has been posted away from the Keep for months now.”

“Oh. I see.” She felt her face flare in embarrassment. Had Yvanne ever mentioned that? Had Loriel simply not listened, or forgotten?

“I could of course recall him—”

“No, that won’t be necessary. If Howe is not available it will have to be somebody else. Please provide me with a list of suitable candidates for the position. When can you get it to me?”

“I—well—there are a great many qualified wardens—”

“When, Garahel?”

“Give me until tomorrow.”

“Good. That’s all.” She turned to go, then stopped. “One more thing. Have the kitchens send meals to my chambers, twice a day. Otherwise, I am not to be disturbed.”

“Of course, ser.” He took a breath. “If I may, ser, there may be a great deal of confusion among the men regarding Comman— _ acting  _ Commander Amell’s sudden departure. It may be a good idea to formally address the Keep, let everyone know what has happened.”

“Very well,” she managed. “Have everyone assemble in the great hall in an hour’s time and I will address them.”

“It will be done, ser.” He saluted her. “Commander, if I may ask, forgive me if it is not my place—is everything alright?”

She looked at him. “You’re right,” she said, “It isn’t your place.”

With that out of the way, she went to the kitchens, invisible again, feeling foolish and angry with herself. She’d panicked when she’d agreed to address the Keep. She cursed her perennial inability to simply say  _ no  _ to a request the whole way to the kitchens.

On her way to the lower levels she finally spotted a set of familiar faces. Sigrun pacing in a little circle, Velanna with her forehead leaned against the wall.

“I’m not sure what to make of it.” Sigrun bit her lip, worried. “I already tried the door…”

“Maybe we should just break it down, then,” said Velanna.

“I’m not risking  _ that!  _ What if  _ she’s  _ in there? That’s a good way to get my soul sucked out.”

“Don’t exaggerate,” snapped Velanna, although she didn’t look so sure. 

_ Me,  _ Loriel thought,  _ they meant me.  _ Is that really what they thought of her? Hot anger bloomed in her gut like coal.

“I trust Amell. It will become clear soon.”

Sigrun sighed. “I hope you’re right…”

Velanna’s ear twitched as Loriel glided past, and for a moment Loriel thought she’d been caught—although caught doing  _ what,  _ she couldn’t say. But after a moment Velanna went back to her conversation.

The kitchens weren’t busy. A girl was washing dishes and whistling tunelessly. Loriel didn’t have the patience to deal with her.

_ “Leave the room,”  _ she commanded. “ _ Forget you saw me.” _

The serving girl’s eyes went blank as the dish she was washing slipped from her fingers. She left the room with her hands still dripping.

“And close the door behind you,” Loriel added irritably. 

Funny how guilty she’d felt the first time she’d used blood magic to take someone’s mind. She’d been so intolerably scrupulous then. How had anyone ever put up with her? 

Only then did it occur to her that it might have been a good idea to ask—or “ask”—someone to prepare her a meal. Loriel wasn’t sure how old she was, but she suspected that she was now closer to thirty than twenty, and she still had no idea how to cook. But right then she was hungry enough that she was ready to eat whatever was on hand and unlikely to poison her.

How inconvenient, how wretched and disgusting, that she still had base needs like this. She would have to work on eliminating them. 

Having eaten, and tasted nothing, she went to go find Varel—no, not Varel, it was  _ Garahel  _ now, she needed to remember that. She didn’t need to look long. He had done as she’d asked, and gathered what certainly looked like most of the Wardens of Vigil’s Keep in the Great Hall. She was no longer invisible, and a few people noticed her as she approached. Gasps and murmurs spread out from her like ripples.

Maker, this was awkward.

She raised a hand, and as one the hall fell silent. “Good—” Evening? Morning? Afternoon? What time  _ was  _ it? “—day, Wardens of Vigil’s Keep.” Her voice was soft, too soft, but the hall was silent, straining to hear her in the huge chamber. “I appear today to inform you all that there have been some changes at the highest level of command. Warden Amell has stepped down from her post, and will no longer be functioning in the role of acting Warden-Commander.”

She cleared her throat. “As such, a position has opened up in the ranks. If anyone wishes to be considered for promotion, they should submit their names to Seneschal Garahel by the end of the day.”

“But what’s happened to Amell?” somebody called out. She didn’t quite catch who it had been. She had to stop herself from glaring in their direction.

“She has departed the Keep, on my orders,” said Loriel. “She is pursuing secret business. I can speak no further of it.”

“When will she return?” That had been an elven woman near the front. 

“I can speak no further of it,” Loriel repeated.

A great deal of murmuring broke out at this. She could tell they weren’t quite buying it. Well, she didn’t care.

She felt that she ought to have said something encouraging. Something to reassure them that nothing untoward was happening and that nothing was changing, which was true, even if the mood in the room didn’t seem to reflect that. But nothing came to mind. The world hadn’t ended, she reminded herself. It only felt like it did.

So after a sufficient pause, she said, “That is all. You are dismissed,” and departed. She managed to leave the room in a dignified manner, slow and regal, but the moment she was away from public eye, she rendered herself invisible again, and darted back into her office before anyone tried to talk to her.

—

The next day Garahel delivered the list of names to be considered for promotion. She scanned it, looking for names she recognized, and found none.

“I suppose you’ll want to conduct interviews—” Garahel began.

“No,” Loriel said dispassionately. She read the name at the top of the list. “I’ve made my choice. Promote Tevva Gondrin.”

“Er, that’s  _ Tevye,  _ ser.”

“Is it? You should work on your handwriting.”

“Of course, ser. Sorry, ser.” He hesitated, then barrelled on, “Ser, while Tevye is a fine warden, I’m not sure...that is to say, are you certain that you don’t want to—”

“Yes, Garahel, I’m quite certain,” said Loriel. “Go and tell Tevye the good news. Dismissed.”

Garahel departed, hopefully not to bother her again for a long time. She breathed slightly easier, now that it was done. 

With the one thing she needed to take care of done with, she was left to brood.

Her mind was perfectly at peace, tranquil in the knowledge that she had done the right thing. But her body wanted to cry its heart out and didn’t much care what her mind had concluded.

_ I did the right thing,  _ she thought, again and again. Because she had to have done. Because the alternative, that she had done it for nothing, was too horrible to contemplate.

Loriel had little memory of the next few days. Her head was too full of fog to work, and being in the lab only filled her with guilt for not working. Neither could she stand to be in the bedroom, soaked as it was in grief and memory.

So she spent most of her time invisible, wandering the Keep.

It counted as work, she told herself. She was keeping a finger on the pulse of her fortress. She had to be the Commander again, that meant she had to know what was going on.

The mood in the Keep regarding the situation in general, and Loriel in particular, was not...particularly optimistic. 

On one occasion she chanced upon the three remaining original Wardens sitting together. Loriel never would have thought to see Sigrun and Velanna so at ease with Oghren of all people—but then, she hadn’t even known Nathaniel was gone. What did she know about any of these people, anymore?

“I’m telling you, something  _ weird  _ is going on,” Sigrun said. “She wouldn’t just  _ leave.”  _

“I think it’s fairly obvious what’s going on,” Velanna snorted. “Oghren understands.”

Oghren grunted and quaffed.

“I just feel so bad for her,” Sigrun said. “She must be a mess. Didn’t you see her barely holding it together during the announcement? I think she’d been crying…”

“Obviously she was crying,” said Velanna. “Wouldn’t you be crying?”

“I guess it was bound to happen eventually,” Sigrun said, and sighed. “Geez, I’m going to miss her...who else is going to bring me new books? I hope she’s happier now, wherever she’s gone.”

Oh, thought Loriel. They think she left  _ me. _

A petty part of her wanted to turn visible right then and there and set things straight. She had her pride. Yvanne hadn’t left her.  _ She  _ had left  _ Yvanne.  _ Or anyway, had told her to go, which was the same thing.

“Maybe I should try going up there…”

“Don’t offer her your pity,” Velanna snapped. “I wouldn’t want it, if it were me.”

Despite herself, Loriel felt a rush of gratitude. She didn’t think she’d be able to stand it if Sigrun tried to  _ comfort  _ her. She didn’t need comfort. She was going to get over this. She was going to be  _ fine.  _

It was exactly why she couldn’t go out unless she concealed herself. If she did they would be kind to her, and she couldn’t think of anything in the world she deserved or wanted less. 

Having heard that, she returned to her chambers. A cold meal was waiting in the dumbwaiter. She ate it, didn’t taste it, and then fell asleep at the desk. She almost always slept there now, with her head resting on her folded arms. She was used to it. She didn’t think she’d be able to stand getting into the bed.

When she wasn’t wandering the halls she sat in her room. Mostly she stared out the window. Sometimes her breath would hitch and she would have to cover her eyes from the world for a while.

Sometimes she would pick through the belongings in the place. The plan had been to take anything that had been Yvanne’s and put it in a chest and lock it and never look inside it ever again. But that rapidly became nonviable, because  _ everything  _ in here was Yvanne’s. 

Yvanne had filled this room with things to make it a home—the tapestries of capering forest animals, the scented candles, the knick-knacks on the mantelpiece. Mementos from their travels stood upon every surface and hung on every wall. No square inch of this room existed without Yvanne’s imprint on it.

Yvanne had built this Keep, had shepherded its people, had protected it with blood and spirit. And Loriel had driven her from it.

Perhaps she just hadn’t wanted her to have it.

The thought filled her with so much self disgust that she resolved never to think it again.

—

Perhaps a week into her wallowing, Velanna broke through her door.

Loriel had been reading a book. She had no idea of its title, or author, or even vaguely what it was about. But she’d been reading it all afternoon and was deeply annoyed to be interrupted.

“I thought I locked that door,” she said flatly. 

Velanna sniffed disdainfully, as though a lock could possibly matter to one of her talents.

Loriel sighed, exhaling harshly through her nostrils. “What do you  _ want,  _ Velanna?”

Velanna looked around the room. The broken things littering the floor. The piles of empty, dirty dishes, several days worth of them, even though getting rid of them was as simple as just putting them back in the dumbwaiter. 

“Amell’s really gone, then.”

“Yes,” Loriel said, strained. “Is that all you had to say? Get out.”

Velanna did not get out. She took several steps around the room, surveying. The heavy curtains. The perfectly made, untouched bedclothes.

“Why did she  _ really  _ leave?”

“That is none of your concern.” Loriel rose. “I am  _ ordering  _ you to get out.”

“Left you, did she?” 

Loriel had had enough. She slammed her fist on the table. “That is  _ not  _ what happened, not that it is  _ any  _ of your business. Frankly, how dare you come in here and say such things to me? I am your commanding officer, or have you forgotten? I told  _ her  _ to go.”

Velanna watched her impassively. If she was startled by her outburst she didn’t show it.

“And anyway, it was inevitable.” Loriel's hand gripped the edge of the desk. “It was always going to happen this way. I always knew it. I’m not...it was always…”

The steel went out of her spine, and she found herself lowering herself back into the high-backed commander’s chair. She covered her eyes with her hands and to her horror, felt her breath hitch.

Loriel had always been an easy crier. It didn’t take much; the tears always seemed to lurk just under her surface. But she always did it in private. As long as she could remember, the only living person who had ever seen her cry had been Yvanne. Now she was doing it in front of a woman who hated and disdained her, simply because she was too weak to prevent herself from doing so.

“No,” Velanna said. “No, you don’t get to do this. You don’t get to fall apart."

The incredible boldness of this statement was enough to startle Loriel out of her spiral of misery. "W-what?"

"What is  _ wrong  _ with you? You’re better than this.”

_ Am I?  _ Loriel thought cynically. She supposed she understood how somebody might get that impression. But it wasn’t true. She wasn’t better than this, and she never had been.

Velanna snapped her fingers in front of her face. “Hey! Cut that out! You’re being  _ pathetic. _ And you might be a rude and faithless round-ear with no respect for your people, but one thing you aren’t is pathetic. So cut it out!”

“I’m not—”

“You are!” Velanna said furiously. “You are  _ wallowing.” _

The word echoed through the room.

“I know,” Loriel said. It came out quiet, though she ought to have been angry. 

“You are engaging in behavior that is beneath you.”

Loriel sighed. “Yes. I know. I just…” She swallowed. “I really loved her.”

She was expecting mockery. But instead Velanna went quiet, her shoulders slumping. Then she dragged over a chair, and sat in it. Yvanne had sat in that chair not so long ago, sitting vigil over Loriel’s unconscious body the way she’d so often done for her when they were children. Now she never would again.

“The Dalish have a saying,” Velanna said, uncharacteristically gentle. “A bird may love a fish. But where would they build a home together?”

Loriel had the vaguest notion that Velanna was, in some way, talking about herself. That it may have had something to do with Nathaniel’s departure, whenever that had been. But Loriel had no intention of asking her about it. Yvanne would have hated not knowing (this thought was a knife in her heart), but Loriel let it lie.

Perhaps that was why they were able to come to this accord.

“I know,” she said quietly. Then, “I told her to go. I was the one who understood.”

Velanna nodded tersely, like she understood, too. A great part of Loriel wanted to deny this—how could Velanna  _ possibly  _ understand, how could  _ anybody  _ understand the depths of her love and the enormity of the sacrifice she had made?—but a greater part only wanted to accept what she’d been given: absolution.

“Right,” said Velanna. “So are you going to stay in here and mope for the rest of your life?”

“No. That is not my intent.”

“Because my sister threw away her life for what you’re doing. If you waste her gift…”

“I don’t intend to do that.”

“Good,” said Velanna. “Good.”

She began to reach out, as though to touch Loiel in comfort. But thankfully before she got anywhere close, reconsidered.

Velanna nodded tersely, rose, and had the decency not to offer anything further. She left without a word of comfort or respect. 

And Loriel...felt better.  What Velanna had said was exactly what she needed. She _was _being pathetic. She _was _wallowing. Not just mourning, but reveling in sorrow, drowning herself in it on purpose.

In another life she might have permitted herself such indulgences, but s he had an important job to do. It was high time that she get back to it.

First thing first—she couldn’t stay in this room, not for one moment longer. She would have her office in another chamber, one where she could still access her hidden lab easily. Trivial to accomplish, with some expertly applied earth spells. 

She gathered all her things. Depressingly, it didn’t amount to much, but at least it meant she wouldn’t need to spend much time moving. As she closed the door to her and Yvanne’s former bedchamber, she hesitated, and chanced to look back.

_ We had a cottage in the woods. There were crow’s feet around your eyes and grey in your hair. We were happy. _

But those were a child’s things. It had never been possible. It was never going to have been true.

She slammed the door closed, locked and barred it, and with a careful fire spell, melted the key to slag. That part of her life was over. She was ready to let it go.

Of course she still loved Yvanne. She would love her until, and unless, she died. But she could not live with her. She was beginning to suspect that she could not live with anyone.

That was the way of things, perhaps. Whether or not Loriel had ever been built to be fit for the world, this was the way she had grown. The way she had been obliged to grow. There would be no changing that.

She accepted it. She could live with it. She could move on from it, forward into the future she would build with her two hands, with her blood and with her spirit.

It would be a better world, the one that she would build.

But she did not intend to love again.


	14. Chapter 14

Yvanne hadn’t meant to stay in Highever long. Only enough to get her bearings, recover, figure out where she was going to go, what she was going to do. But that first night, after she’d gone down and gotten a drink and not felt any better, she figured she may as well have another one. Then another. Then she drank until she forgot what she was drinking about, then slept til well past noon. 

She woke with a splitting hangover. Almost thoughtlessly, she reached for the Fade to provide some desperately needed relief—and then remembered the cloth merchant. Fear electrified her. No, she daren’t risk it.

Without magic, she had no choice but to lay there and experience the hangover’s full wrath. It would be a novelty, if nothing else (though soon it would cease to be that, too.) Having a hangover took up most of her afternoon, after which she scrounged enough of herself up to go have her first meal of the day, which ended up being dinner. And after dinner was as good a time as any to start drinking again.

So it went.

A week passed like that, and then another, and then she was out of money. She could hardly expect to leave Highever if she had no money, so she sold one of her amulets. A Tranquil woman running a magic shop ended up giving her the best price, and the memory of her flattened voice and the vivid (recent?) sun brand on her forehead drove Yvanne to drink all the more that night. It all ended with her vomiting on the floor. The innkeeper looked ready to throw her out, but the clink of her newly-gained gold pieces discouraged any haste.

Sometimes she idly wondered about the cloth merchant who she had robbed and whose mind she had very possibly destroyed. But she rarely wondered for long. That was the thing about encounters with a spirit of Forgetting—they didn’t stick around in your mind for very long. Besides, she had more important things to worry about. The amulet had sold for a good bit more than the cloth. She figured she could afford to stay at the inn for a while, buy some supplies, and head out soon.

But weeks later half that money was gone, and she had no plan, no gear, and no will to get either. So she stayed at the inn.

She’d get out, she told herself. Just not yet. She wasn’t ready.

She missed Oghren. If he was here she would have felt better. More normal, anyway. She wondered where he was now. Probably still at the Keep, drinking himself to death without even a friend to do it with. Though she hadn’t even been a very good friend, had she? A better friend wouldn’t have let herself get dragged into the muck right alongside him. A better friend would have tried harder.

Oh, well. She’d always half-suspected that she was scum. If nothing else, it was nice to feel like she’d been right about herself.

A month later, she sold an armband to keep herself housed and watered, and no longer bothered to pretend that she had any intention of leaving. In fact, she had zero intentions at all.

It wasn’t so bad. In a lot of ways she was better off now than before. Nobody relied on her. She had no responsibilities. If she wanted to sleep all day and drink all night (which she did), nobody suffered. Best of all, when she thought about Loriel (and she thought about Loriel every couple minutes, in those early days), she didn’t feel a sick mix of dread and misery—she just felt fucking _ angry. _No wonder Velanna had been so fucking angry all the time, shortly after her whole life had been destroyed by her own hand. Angry was good. Angry was easy. 

It was _ her _ fault that she was in this position. _ She’d _ driven her here, made their shared lives unlivable. _ She _ had set everything they had on fire and dared Yvanne to watch it burn, _ she _ had taken _ everything _ from her. If _ she’d _ given so much as an inch none of this would have ever happened. If she had put in the smallest iota of effort, if she'd cared about Yvanne the tiniest little bit, they could still have been happy together.

(_ You couldn’t have been, _ a voice inside her whispered, _ and it’s your own fault for not seeing it sooner.) _

How could she just not care? How could it not matter? How could she do this to them? She hated her, she _ hated _her—nearly as much as she still loved her.

—

She decided early on that she would be a mage no longer. She did no magic, carried no staff. The part of her that knew magic was atrophying day by day, and she was glad of it. If she never again touched the Fade, never again felt its cool waters and infinite varieties—that would be fine. Good, even. Better to be free. Better to be safe.

What had magic ever brought her but pain?

She never gave her real name. Yvanne Amell was somebody’s wife, somebody’s friend, somebody’s mentor and commander, so she would no longer be Yvanne Amell. The innkeeper who had been putting up with her presence knew her as nobody at all, and anybody else that asked got a different answer every time. 

One week she met a well-off Antivan trader, rich in silks and bravado. She put her hand on his wrist and looked up with limpid eyes and spun him a tale of how her husband, a cruel and petty man who married her for her titles and seized them from her--how she had had to flee to Highever in terror of his wrath, and how she, once a noble lady, had been rendered homeless and destitute. The Antivan became so enraged at her piteous plight that he drew his sword and declared that he would not rest until he had slain the cruel and perfidious Bann himself and shortly thereafter fell asleep. She informed the innkeeper that her bill for the evening would be on him.

That was the nice thing about a port city like Highever—it never wanted for a steady stream of transient, interesting characters. After many weeks of staying at the inn, not a single face was familiar, and she was free to be somebody else.

Another week she was a Chasind exile, driven from her home because she had dared to find love outside the clan. Her lover had been a rich overland trader who plied her with fine gifts—but alas, when she left her clan to be with him he had abandoned her, and now she had nothing but her faithless lover’s presents to live on. She told this story seven times over the course of a week, each time with further embellishments, each time well enough to earn enough of her audience’s sympathy that they might purchase her a meal or another drink.

The first time someone misread her facsimile of friendliness for sexual interest and leaned in to kiss her, it took every scrap of her hard-won self control not to strike him down with lightning on the spot. She managed to only slap the young man across the face instead. It couldn’t have hurt him—she’d grown so used to augmenting her insignificant strength with magic that without it, she felt about as physically imposing as a newborn kitten—but he still drew back in shock. She hissed through her teeth that she was _ not available _and to get out of her sight before she made him regret it.

Later she sat and nursed a tumbler of brandy and dwelled. That wasn’t strictly true, was it? She wasn’t unavailable at all. And the young man had seemed nice enough. She didn’t particularly regret hitting him, but only because she had already decided that she wasn’t going to regret anything ever again. If she started to regret, even for a moment, she would be lost.

After that she slept with whoever seemed even halfway interested. At first mostly women, because women were familiar—and then only men, because women were familiar. With a woman she could not help but compare. With a man it meant less than nothing, an all-but-mechanical exercise of material forms. Men were easier to please, anyway; more than half the ones she took to bed were delighted that she was paying them any attention at all. She would take them to her room for an hour or less, and send them away after. She rarely let anyone spend the night, and then only ever on accident.

She felt like a teenager again, sleeping with whoever the hell she wanted, just because she could. It felt good to betray Loriel even in this little way, even though Loriel had been the one to tell her to go, even though she had no one to betray anymore.

After all, why not? All this time she had obsessively wondered, _ how could it mean nothing? _ Well, it was time to stop wondering. It _ did _mean nothing. Nothing meant anything, and she was free, free, free.

Some of them left payment for her trouble. The first time it happened she had flushed furious red and tried to explain that it wasn’t like that, she hadn’t been performing a _ service— _and then realized that she would have to be a complete idiot to turn down coin for something she was going to do anyway. So what if they misunderstood? Let them! She’d take their money if they were so desperate to part with it.

After a while, she started negotiating higher rates. 

The innkeeper eventually put a stop to it. He informed her, none too politely, that she was free to ply her trade in the brothel, but _ not _at a respectable establishment like his inn, and if she did not stop at once he would throw her out. So that put an end to that. She went back to selling jewelry.

It hadn’t occurred to her that there was a brothel in Highever, although upon even a brief moment’s thought it became obvious that there had to be. She remembered the Pearl in Denerim. Back then she’d been so eagerly curious to find out what they were like inside, because she’d been so eagerly curious about everything. Loriel had found the whole thing distasteful and at the time had sarcastically asked her if she was looking for work. 

Maker, but they could be horrible to each other. The rest of the night she sat and remembered every single time Loriel had been horrible to her and she’d been horrible back.

One night, in a fit of what could only be insanity, she went around to every brothel in the city until she found a working elven woman with pale skin and black hair, and afterward felt so disgusting that she couldn’t get out of bed for a week.

—

“—Amell—”

She jerked up at the mention of her discarded name. She had been slouched at the counter, sipping the last remnants of what probably passed for wine, half-asleep and struggling to stay awake. If she fell asleep the innkeeper would make her go upstairs, and she wasn’t ready for that, yet.

Her heart pounded. Who here knew her name? She looked wildly around at the source of the voice, which she didn’t think she recognized. Her eyes settled on two men she definitely didn’t know. Where they had come from was impossible to say by clothing and accent alone. Fereldans? Free Marchers?

Neither of them were looking at her. She strained to hear their conversation. 

“—took up residence at the old estate,” said one.

“Feh,” said the other. “I don’t believe that cockamamie story about a Deep Roads expedition. If you ask me this upstart new Lord Amell got his money the old fashioned way—trickery, lies, or thievery.”

“Or all three.”

“Or all three!”

“Well, perhaps so. Either way I’d rather deal with this new cocksure than the last Lord Amell. Drunken idiot, that one was, bloody impossible to do business with. Kirkwall’s better off without him—assuming he’s really dead.”

“_ I _hear the last Lord Amell now lives in a hovel in Lowtown.”

“Maybe somebody claiming to be the old Lord Amell, alright. Anyway, even if this new Lord Amell is a lying trickster, you’re right that he can hardly be worse than old Gamlen, whatever’s happened to him.”

She kept listening a while, but the conversation soon turned to that season’s commercial fishing prospects, and they did not discuss Lord Amell again before they headed up to their rooms for the night.

They didn’t mean her, she thought. They were only talking about this Lord Amell, whoever he was. She was so relieved that she had another drink, and then really did fall asleep on the counter, and was subsequently shaken awake and sent to bed by the weary innkeeper.

Only when she was getting into her own bed did it occur to her that her family had lived in Kirkwall, once, and that the name _ Lord Amell _might have been more than simply a coincidence.

Over the months that followed she heard more talk of Lord Amell, usually from sailors making port out of Kirkwall. They said Lord Amell was well over six feet tall and nearly as wide, that he consorted with smugglers and thieves and Qunari, that he had a pet hawk as his constant companion. They said he was secretly an apostate, and what more locked in a torrid romance with a Rivaini pirate queen—although the accounts varied. Sometimes the torrid romance involved an escaped Tevinter slave or a Dalish blood mage. She disbelieved all these stories at once, and even began to doubt that this Lord Amell even existed. He sounded more like a tall tale or local legend than an actual person.

And even if he was real—he was hardly any business of hers. Resolutely, she went back to the important business of drinking herself to death.

—

Sometimes she did leave the inn. On these occasions she would blearily wander the city with no particular aim in sight. She would go to the docks, to the walls of Castle Cousland, to the markets, anywhere where people were. City guards and thieves and mothers with their children and slouching youths and burly dockworkers, they all streamed around her. If her dark skin and braided hair was cause for a second glance in other parts of Ferelden, not so in the port city of Highever.

This was what it meant to be part of the world. Total anonymity. Total aloneness. Total perfection.

On one of these sojourns she found herself walking past the gates of the alienage. Loriel was from Highever, she suddenly remembered. She’d been born in the alienage here. Were her parents still here?

She laughed to herself. What if she found them? _ Do you know where your daughter is? _ she would ask them. _ Do you know what she’s been up to? Do you even care? _She found herself looking intently at every person she saw, looking for older elves with narrow eyes and dark hair, but nobody looked like a decent match.

Highever wasn’t so far from Vigil’s Keep. Loriel could have come here and looked for her parents any time she wanted. But she’d never even cared to try. She’d given up on them, too. 

Suddenly she was furious at her all over again

She wondered if her own father knew or cared that she was still alive. If _ he _ was even still alive; the man she remembered had been so sapped of all vitality that it would not surprise her if the loss of yet another daughter destroyed him completely. When she had been a child she had hated him for abandoning her in Kinloch. She’d been so furious at him for so long that she’d entirely forgotten to think of him, burying all memory of him beneath an avalanche of bitter hatred. It was only now occurring to her that her father had loved her.

She wondered where her sisters were now. They hadn’t been close. They fought over toys and food and their father’s attention, hit and pinched and slapped each other, screamed and shouted and ruined dinner. Suddenly she missed them so much it felt like a physical ache, though she had not thought of them in years. She wondered who they had grown up to be. 

At least her oldest sister was probably in a Circle now. When she had been discovered a mage, her mother had been so grief-stricken that she begged the Templars for mercy on her knees, right in the city streets—and her a noble lady. It was quite the scandal, and a bigger scandal yet when Revka Amell disappeared to parts unknown soon after. That was all she knew; she remember little of it, and anytime she’d asked for more, her father would look pained and drawn and refuse to speak more on it.

For a long time, anytime her father was less than what she’d wanted, when he was distant or sad or busy and seemed to look through and not at her, her mother had been the imagined Good Parent. Her mother, who always sided with her and let her do what she wanted, who never hit her or ignored her or let her be hurt. She would spend hours in this fantasy, supposing that someday her mother would come and take her away to wherever she’d gone off to, and she would finally have the life she’d always meant to have.

Unlike her father, though, her mother had abandoned her willingly. 

She didn’t remember how old she had been when she’d stopped having that fantasy.

Somebody bumped into her; an elven woman balancing a basket of mangos on her head. She realized she’d just been standing blank-faced in the middle of an alienage for several minutes now. Then she noticed all the dirty looks she was attracting from the alienage elves, wondering what some strange shem woman was doing here.

Fuck this, she thought, heading back to the inn. And fuck all this futile wondering about her family. Even if she wanted to find them she would spend a lifetime searching. One way or another, they were lost to her for good. 

—

She didn’t generally let her disposable lovers stay in her bed for long. Sleeping next to someone and feeling their warmth disgusted her. That she’d let this one stay had been pure accident; she’d just gotten too drunk, and fallen asleep practically halfway through. 

When she woke again to the late-afternoon light seeping into her room, she found that she had been robbed. All her jewelry; that was most of what she owned, all of it valuable. Her traitorous temporary lover would be hours away by now, carrying her rings, her bracelets, her armbands, her necklaces and amulets, even the little decorations she wore in her hair. That was everything she could have hoped to live on. She had less now than she’d even fled the Vigil with.

She sat on the bed with her legs tucked underneath her like a child. She felt like the biggest fool to ever walk the earth. But if she were honest with herself—with how careless she was being—it was a wonder this hadn’t happened earlier. 

Laughter bubbled up from her chest and into her throat, until she had to let it out or else choke on it. She put her head in her hands and laughed until she couldn’t breathe, until she gasped for breath and blackness ate at the edges of her vision.

Something glinted on her hand, drawing her attention to it. Her wedding ring. She had grown so used to its presence on her finger, her plainest piece, the one she never removed or swapped out for anything different. That was it. That was all that was left. 

Her head throbbed, but she didn’t dare use magic to fix it. She badly wanted a drink, to take the edge off, but she had no money, and there wouldn’t be enough men at the inn to cajole into supplying her until later this evening. 

Suddenly she couldn’t stand to sit here. She needed to go outside and feel the sunlight before evening fell—and the markets closed. 

The late summer air was heavy like soup. She felt herself floating through the streets as though not under her own power. She was sober, painfully sober, but nothing felt real, anyway. She watched people hurrying to and fro, going about their comfortable lives, totally ignorant of her plight. Totally indifferent to the slow and now sudden dissolution of her entire life.

Having only one possible recourse, she went to the shop of the Tranquil woman who had always given her the best prices for her jewelry. But then she lingered outside the door.

Her wedding ring gleamed dully as she pulled it from her finger. The simple band was worn smooth from her thumb constantly swiping across it; she must have rubbed it a thousand times over the past several months. She hadn’t taken it off since she’d put it on, years ago. Until now.

What a stupid, impulsive thing it had been, the way they’d gotten engaged (_ Loriel gilded in moonlight, the most beautiful woman in the world—) _ What a stupid excuse of a ceremony their wedding had been _(Loriel breathlessly promising—)_ What a joke it had been. They'd vaguely planned on a real ceremony someday, and now that day would never come. A trivial pathetic excuse of a wedding, for a trivial pathetic excuse of a relationship, one built on nothing but mutual parasitism, on nothing but fear, on _nothing._ What a stupid, pointless, empty _ (Loriel flushed and laughing, being spun around wildly as they danced, happy—) _thing it had been. It made her sick with rage to think of it.

She went inside the shop and sold the ring.

—

The sun was setting by the time she left the shop, her hand bare, her pocket heavy with a little purse of coins. The markets were already closing; there wasn’t really anything left for her to do except go back to the inn.

Except she knew that if she did that, she’d get herself a drink. And because she’d only woken up a few hours ago, she’d keep getting herself drinks. And by the next day she might easily burn through a significant portion of the last few coins she had to her name.

So instead she wandered the city. As long as she kept putting one foot in front of the other—she would be alright.

Only she wouldn’t be. She had nothing to live on, no skills to peddle. Nobody was hiring mages, nor castle administrators. And who would want a willowy female soldier who needed magic to wield a blade at all effectively? She didn't know how to weave or spin or farm or smith; outside the walls she had ensconced herself in, she was useless.

What was she going to do? _ What was she going to do? _

The sun had fully set by now. Her feet hurt; the shoes she’d bought to replace her ruined pair were cheap and unlikely to last long. Once she’d walked across all of Ferelden, but she’d had good leather boots to do it in. Those were boots that would have lasted a lifetime, and they were back at Vigil's Keep. She wouldn’t be seeing those again.

She could not stop looking at her left hand, bare for the first time in years. It felt perversely light without her. (_ Nothing. It had meant nothing _.)

A red lantern glowed at the end of the street, and she realized where she was—the brothel. It was called the Lady’s Grace, an awfully pretty name for a place with such sticky floors. After the one time she’d paid it a visit, she had avoided this part of town, acid shame in the pit of her stomach anytime she strayed too near. 

But now the glowing red light was as a lighthouse to a storm-tossed ship. There! She could go there—and beg for a place. Girls in these places were well-provided for—food, shelter, enough money to keep drinking. The work would be easy—it was just _ sex. _ And unlike the others, if she caught something, or fell pregnant, that was an easy fix. She had abandoned magic, but magic wasn’t something you could forget—she would keep it secret, use it only when necessary. Yes, she could do that.

Eagerly, she reached for the handle of the front door, bathed in the red light—and hesitated.

Was she really going to do this? 

She could easily imagine it. She would disappear into the Lady’s Grace, and come out only rarely if at all. There she would be comfortable as she wiled away the years, and slowly in the perfumes and the pillows, she would forget. Someday she would be old, and still she would stay, be the madame. She’d run a castle, once, an army. How hard could a brothel be? It wouldn’t be so bad a life. At least she’d have a more comfortable bed.

But still she hesitated.

She looked at her bare hand again.

Yvanne Amell had been somebody’s wife, so it had been intolerably painful for her to be Yvanne Amell. Better by an ale-soaked gutter rat than be Yvanne Amell. But now Yvanne Amell wasn’t anybody’s wife. The only proof that she’d ever been anybody's wife was gone now.

Perhaps it was time to start being Yvanne Amell again.

She thought of all these rumors she had heard of Lord Amell of Kirkwall. If this Lord Amell was real...if he wasn’t a pretender...he might well be her cousin. Her father, her mother, her sisters, all of them were beyond her reach. Not so her maybe-cousin. 

Drawing back from the brothel door, she headed to the docks. Her fingers closed around her last few coins. Would it be enough for passage? Perhaps not—perhaps she would have to beg, or steal, but either way, her mind was made up.

Yvanne would make for Kirkwall.


	15. Chapter 15

Yvanne spent some of her least pleasant hours yet in the hold of a Fereldan cog, feeling fresh new hells of nausea with every heave and sway of the ungainly vessel. Never had she been so tempted to use magic until that journey—if not to cure her nausea, then to at least induce catatonia until the trip was over. But the voyage turned out to be surprisingly short; the cog departed Highever in the late morning, and made port in Kirkwall the following evening. Yvanne had always imagined that any sea journey would be intolerably long—how could it not be? The sea in her imagination was an infinite uncrossable barrier. It seemed bizarre and unthinkable that a ship could cross it in a day.  


With the prospect of facing Kirkwall so much earlier than she anticipated, she found herself hesitating. Much as she’d ached to escape the ship in the past day, now she was loath to leave it. She peaked aboveboard to an unfamiliar sight.

Nobody was paying attention to her. The sailors and dockworkers heaved and pulled to bring the cog to bear, and Yvanne, a mere passenger, was extraneous to this business. She went to the captain, a red-bearded dwarf whose name she had already forgotten, for answers. She suspected she’d overpaid for passage—the captain had been a little too eager to take the remainder of her money—but at least now was quite willing to answer her questions. She just wanted to know what this place was called.

The Gallows, he told her. All ships that trade with Kirkwall were berthed here, apparently.

The captain did not notice the change in her expression, the sudden chalkiness to her skin. The Gallows! She had only ever heard of this place in nightmare stories that older children liked to tell back in Kinloch. There had been a group of girls around thirteen who particularly liked to whisper about the horrible place that bad apprentices were sent if they misbehaved— _ The Gallows.  _ Yvanne had always put on a show like she wasn’t afraid at all, although she was, because Loriel had been a year younger and absolutely  terrified,  and of course as the slightly older child it was Yvanne's duty to be strong for her—

Yvanne was afraid now, despite herself. It wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to a mage, getting sent here. They could always kill you, or worse, make you Tranquil. But there were laws about that, flimsy as they were, that could protect you. If you were careful. If you passed your Harrowing. But they could always transfer you. They could always send you to the Gallows.

Of course she had known they were here, but not that she would have to pass through them herself to enter the city. She imagined that Kirkwall's Circle would be sequestered somewhere that she would never have to look at, let alone go through. Suddenly she was overcome by the certainty that the Templars here—surely they had better Templars here, stronger ones with keener senses—would sniff out her magic at once, seize her and bind her there, and she would never be seen again.  


It was going to happen to her, all over again, just like when she was a little girl. Only this time she would be alone.

No! It was too terrible a fate. She had to get out of here. She had to flee—

No. The way back was closed. The only way onward was through.  Not least of all because she had no money left.  


She disembarked with her head high and chin forward. Strange how difficult it was now, to not seem afraid. When she had been a girl, afraid all the time, she had cloaked her fear in fury. Rage proved stronger than fear, enough so that she could afford to seem fearless. 

But that had never been true.

Still, nobody seemed to notice. She approached the border guard—a Templar, she noted, with dread that she forced to disdain. Where was the city guard?

The sandy-haired pockmarked young man boredly read a set of questions from a parchment. 

“Name?”

“Havela Brightgrass,” Yvanne said, easily enough.

“Business?”

“Visiting family.”

“Have you any goods to declare?”

Yvanne raised her arms, gesturing to herself. “I’m clearly carrying nothing.”

The young man repeated in the same exact tone, “Have you any goods to declare?”

“No.”

“Alright. Go on, then. Enjoy Kirkwall, and all that.” And he moved aside to let her through.

“That’s it? You’re just going to let me in?"

“You complaining?”

“No, I just...that’s it?”

“Used to be more, when there were all the refugees from Ferelden,” he remarked, “But that’s slowed down these past few years.”

“Oh.”  _ Refugees?  _ From the Blight. Of course. It had never occurred to her that would have been refugees out of Ferelden. What else had simply never occurred to her?

From the Gallows a ferry took her to Kirkwall proper. From on high the wailing faces of the stone slaves loomed over her. A chill went through her. What was she  _ doing  _ here? This was a city of nightmares, and she had foolishly sailed right into it.

She looked back at the Gallows, disappearing into the mists, and found herself thinking of Anders. Had he come here, after what he’d done? Had he tried to find Karl? Or had he lost too much of himself to remember that he’d ever loved at all?

She hoped he hadn’t. He hoped he’d come here and found his lover, and broken him out, and that they were on the run together even now, somewhere in the wilderness. Maybe living in a secluded cottage, unbothered by the rest of the world. It was rather unlikely. Probably Karl would stay and rot here forever—you didn’t come  _ out  _ of the Gallows. He was probably still in there. Probably Anders had never even come to Kirkwall, whatever his earlier youthful intentions. Probably Anders was a slavering abomination somewhere in the woods now, if he was even still alive.

But it was a pleasant thought to think, so she thought it. Anders deserved to be happy, whatever he was now, because Yvanne doubted she would ever be happy again, and it was only fair that one of the two of them manage it.

Soon enough the Gallows were miraculously behind her, and the part of Kirkwall known as Lowtown swam into view.

So Yvanne entered the city of her birth.

She remembered some of it. Not much, but more than nothing. She hadn’t yet been born when her oldest sister had been taken by the Templars; the only remnant of her was Yvanne’s listless, melancholy mother. They’d had a home here. There had been an inner courtyard with a garden. Revka Amell had liked to sit in it. And then there had been more trouble in the family, more deaths, debts, dealings with criminals, and then Revka Amell had simply disappeared, and what remained of her family fled Kirkwall to live as nameless townies in Ferelden. 

Disembarking from the ferry, Yvanne inhaled. Her city. She could almost remember the smell of it.

_ What a shithole,  _ she thought.

Kirkwall’s Lowtown was different from Highever. Highever had felt colorful and interesting and bright, not so big that it would be overwhelming, but big enough to get lost in. This city felt...grungy. The way some men looked at her made her glad that she no longer had any jewelry to attract attention with.

_ Now  _ what was she supposed to do?

She had a vague plan to find this legendary Lord Amell, and then she would...what? What would she say?  _ ‘Hello, conditional on you being the real Lord Amell, and real in the first place, I think I might be your cousin. Can I live in your house?’ _

Ridiculous. Why had she even come here? To rediscover her past? To understand her history? To find her family? It had all seemed so perfectly obvious in Highever, when her choice was either to come here or sell herself to a brothel. Now it felt childish and absurd. She had left her home country to come to this horrible city of chains, and for what?

The heavy darkness settled in her chest again. How could she possibly have been so stupid?

All she wanted was to lay down in the gutter and wait for filth to drown her. But she’d come here to find Lord Amell. She could at least try to do that. He probably wasn’t even really her cousin. This was probably all a ridiculous farce. But if she succeeded—he would take one look and laugh in her face, and slam the door for good measure. And  _ then  _ she would lay down in the gutter and wait for filth to drown her.

But first she would try.

—

Asking anyone for anything in the great city of Kirkwall turned out to be an enormous waste of time. She must have mouthed the phrase, ‘Where can I find Lord Amell?’ over a hundred times that day, and for what? Most people simply acted as though they hadn’t heard her. Others grunted ‘Never heard of him’ and hurried past before she could ask how that could be the case, seeing as the Amells were supposed to be one of the most powerful families in Kirkwall. Some others demanded why she wanted to know, or would ask her what the information was worth to her. Less encouragingly, some people told her that there was no such person as Lord Amell, but if she wanted to talk to Hawke, he was the one currently living at the old Amell estate.

Who the hell was Hawke? And what the hell was he doing in  _ her  _ family’s ancestral estate? Who did he think he was? It was seeming more and more likely that Lord Amell was a fictitious person, and that she’d wasted the last of her money to come to this awful city for nothing.

Even if Lord Amell existed, she doubted she’d ever be able to find him. Kirkwall’s streets were so tangled she didn’t see how anybody got along in them. It seemed like every turn she made sent her into a completely different quarter of the city, and when she tried to backtrack, it was as though the streets shifted of their own accord, as though under the influence of a malevolent mage. Most probably she was just getting lost in an unfamiliar city, but she preferred to blame dark, unwholesome magic.

By the time she finally gave up—when she noticed herself standing outside a pub—she was exhausted and already fully sick of Kirkwall. She hated its sandy walls and crooked streets and rancid smell. No wonder her mother had fled this place and her father soon after. Nobody should live here.

The pub was called the Hanged Man. Now that was encouraging, she thought sourly, and pushed open the doors.

Inside she wasn’t sure if it smelled of piss or of sour ale, but was past the point of caring. She leaned against the counter, eyeing the crowd for lonely looking men. She didn’t have to eye for long. She couldn’t have been standing not-obviously-engaged for more than a few minutes when a bald fellow and a potbelly came up to the counter, placed his hand on the small of her back, and demanded that Corff bring a round of ale 'for the lady.' She let his hand stay where it was. She wanted that drink.

The bald man was doing the usual routine, asking for her name, what she was doing here alone, and so on. Yvanne was answering mechanically, trying to drink fast enough that he’d get the bright idea to buy her another ale before getting bored (or angry) at her reticence and giving up. She wasn’t so sure about this one. Nobody had ever tried to take her by force--but if they ever did, she would end up exposing herself as a mage, and that would cause her no end of trouble.

But she was barely halfway through her prize when they were interrupted by the most outlandish woman Yvanne had ever seen in her life.

“And how do you know_ her,_ then?” said the woman. Yvanne struggled not to stare. The woman was dressed mostly in leather and gold and scraps of blue silk. She had not yet drawn any of the innumerable daggers visible on her person, and didn’t seem any less dangerous for it. 

The bald man stammered something, made an excuse, and left without so much as a by-your-leave.

“What in the void did you do that for?” Yvanne demanded. “He was buying my ales.”

“Sorry about that, sweet thing,” said the dagger woman, smiling. It was not exactly a pleasant smile, but the woman didn't look like she had the capacity for pleasant smiles. Maybe this was as close as she got. “There’s rough men about these parts. You should be careful.”

“I know what I’m doing,” Yvanne snapped.

The woman arched an eyebrow. “Do you? My mistake, then. Shows what I get for trying to rescue a stray...”

“ _ Stray?”  _ Yvanne squawked. “You--”

“Hey now, what’s going on here?” Yvanne turned to look at the source of the new voice, saw no one, and then looked down. The person who had spoken was a dwarf, although he looked nothing like any other dwarf Yvanne had ever seen.

The woman rolled her eyes. “Nothing. She knows what she’s doing, apparently. Get another round for the table, would you? I paid last time.” She jingled as she walked away. Yvanne threw the back of her head a dirty look as she did.

The dwarf sized her up, scratching his hairless chin. “What did you say your name was?”

“I didn’t,” Yvanne said. “It’s Havela Brightgrass.”

“Brightgrass, huh? That’s an interesting name. And mine is Varric, Varric Tethras. I make it a point to acquaint myself with interesting persons around Kirkwall, as a man about town. I'm a local merchant, and a very famous author. Maybe you’ve heard of me?

“Sure,” she said, already forgetting his name. “Maybe I have.”

The dwarf chuckled. “Listen, don’t mind Isabela. She didn’t mean to cause you any trouble. Trust me, if she’d meant to cause you trouble, you’d know.”

Yvanne had noticed all the daggers. “I’ll bet.”

“Hey, you’re not busy, are you? Come over and play a round of Wicked Grace. We need a fourth player and half our crew isn’t here. Not much of a game with only three.”

“I don’t know how to play.”

“It’s easy. I’ll show you. Come on—next round on me, since Isabela so rudely scared off your supplier.”

“Fine,” Yvanne said, since the next round was on him. “Sure, I’ll play.”

Isabela didn’t bother to conceal a slight roll of her eyes upon seeing Yvanne again so soon, but at least she didn’t say anything. She was talking to the other person at the table, a Dalish elf with a dreamy expression and a musical voice. She didn’t look much like—like  _ her, _ but she was slight and dark-haired and elven, and that was enough to make Yvanne angry all over again.

Varric made introductions just as the next round arrived, interleaving tips on how to play the game with pointed questions about who Yvanne was, where she’d come from, what she was doing in Kirkwall. Wicked Grace turned out to be a fairly simple betting game, but Yvanne was so distracted with keeping her story straight that she played terribly. It was a good thing she didn’t have any money to lose; she would have lost it all. But she still managed to lie about her life with practiced ease. As far as these people were concerned, she was Havela Brightgrass, a weaver’s daughter, rogue for hire, looking for work in Kirkwall but hailing from Wycome. Nobody but the dwarf—Varric—seemed particularly interested in her made-up story. Isabela hardly seemed to notice her at all, and the elf, Merrill, wasn’t very good at the game. She kept forgetting what the different cards meant, and Isabela had to keep leaning over to explain her hand to her.

Varric kept buying rounds, and kept asking questions, so Yvanne kept playing, although she didn’t particularly like being around the three of them. They all knew each other, had clearly known each other for years—they kept referencing adventures they’d had together and mutual friends they shared. Every inside joke she didn’t understand only raised her hackles further, but every time she’d finally had enough and made to leave, Varric would ask her another question, or offer to buy her something, and she would end up staying for another hand.

So it continued until a fifth person joined the table—one of the most unusual elves she’d ever seen. She wondered if he was Dalish, though she’d never seen hair like that before. 

“Hello, Fenris,” the other Dalish said politely.

The newcomer—Fenris?—ignored her, and barely glanced at Yvanne. “Aveline not coming?” he grunted as he pulled up a chair and leaned his sword against the back of it.

“She’s working,” said Varric. “Blondie’s busy in his clinic, too.”

“Did I  _ ask  _ about the mage?” The elf rolled his eyes. “And I suppose we can’t count on Hawke.” Yvanne wasn’t exactly drunk, though far from sober, but she recognize the name. Wasn’t that the name of the person living at the Amell estate now? Did these people know that squatter?  


“He hasn’t been feeling well,” Merill said. “What with…” Then her eyes flicked to Yvanne and she cut herself off.

This was about all Yvanne could take. “Alright, well, it looks like you no longer need a fourth player, so I’ll be on my way. Thanks.” She abandoned her cards and almost managed not to stumble on her way up.

“Oh, come on—” she heard Varric begin to say, but before he could finish, she was out the door.

Night had fallen while she’d been in the Hanged Man, flooding the darkened twisting streets of Kirkwall with specks of moonlight. She breathed the cool air deep and even. Being in that place, among those people who knew each other all so well, had been like poison. She had never felt so much like an outsider. Where were her Wardens now, how were Sigrun and Velanna? What strange places had Nathaniel found himself among? Was Oghren even still alive? How was his child? Was Garahel managing the Keep without her? Who was taking care of them all?  


While she roiled in these dark thoughts, she failed to notice Varric approaching her again. “Hey, kid,” he said, startling her out of her thousand-league stare. “You alright?”

“Yeah,” she said, “Fine.”

“Good,” said the dwarf. “So now that we’re alone, how about you tell me your  _ real  _ story?”

She stiffened. “What?”

“Take it from one liar to another, kid--you’re not half-bad, but not nearly good enough.”

She crossed her arms, glaring at him. “What exactly do you think you know about me?”

“That you’re not from Wycome, for one thing. That was the biggest one—you’ve got a Fereldan accent, although a weird one. That tipped me off, and after that you couldn’t keep your story straight. Sometimes you had two brothers, sometimes three, and you kept messing up what your mother died of.”

“Thanks for the tip,” she muttered. “What do you care, anyway?”

“Like I said, I’m a modern man about town. I like to know who the interesting people are in my city, and you struck me as an interesting person. So tell you what—tell me who you really are and what you’re really doing in Kirkwall, and I’ll put you up for the night. Unless you’ve got somewhere to be?”

“No,” she said ruefully. She had nowhere to be, and hadn’t for months. Meanwhile Varric’s manner was so pleasant and avuncular, like he was at any moment about to pat you on the shoulder and assure you that you’d be alright—it made her  _ want  _ to tell him everything.

She wouldn’t, of course. She wasn’t crazy. But she could tell him some things.

“Okay, fine,” she said. “Yes, I’m from Ferelden. I’m here because I’m looking for Lord Amell.”

Varric raised an eyebrow. “Oh? And what dealings do you have with such an august personage?”

“None of your business,” she snapped.

He shrugged. “Maybe not, although I make it my business to know everybody else's. But if you want me to tell you where to find him…”

“I...fine.” She swallowed. She didn’t know why this was so hard. “I’m looking for him because—because I'm an Amell, too. I think I’m his cousin.” Embarrassing, the way the stumbled over the admission. “But he probably doesn’t even exist. The rumors I’ve heard—ridiculous.”

“Oho, he exists alright,” said Varric. “You can be sure of that. He’s actually a friend of mine.”

The fact that Varric had so recently described himself as a liar did little to convince Yvanne that this was true.

“Now, nobody going by the title 'Lord Amell' still lives in Kirkwall—unless you want old Gamlen, and I doubt you do. You want Hawke. He's the son of Leandra Amell. Technically he’s Lord Amell now, though he doesn’t like to be reminded of it. You’ll find him in Hightown.”

“Oh.”

“You know what the Amell crest looks like?” She didn’t. Varric scribbled a symbol on a piece of parchment. “Like that. Keep it, go on. It’ll be the big house with that crest on the lintel. You could probably go over there now; I’d bet my beard he’s still up, and he’d love to meet a cousin. You know, assuming you aren’t just an opportunistic fraudster or something. And hey, even if you are, Hawke’s always taking in wayward souls.”

“You don’t have a beard.”  _ And I’m not a wayward soul,  _ she meant to add, although she was, wasn't she?  


“That’s the whole trick, isn’t it?” He grinned.

Yvanne looked at the parchment with the crudely drawn crest on it. Her family’s crest. What did it say about her that it wasn’t even a bit familiar to her? “I...thanks.” She hesitated. “What’s he like? Hawke, I mean.”

“Great guy. You’ll love him. All the rumors you’ve heard? Absolutely true.”

“Right. Sure.” She wasn’t sure if he was kidding—and what it meant if he wasn’t. “Which way to Hightown?”

—

She only got lost three times trying to find Hightown, during which time it began to rain. But at least when she finally made it up the broad stairs to the half-decent part of the city, getting around was easier. There were fewer houses, at least.

Finally she found the one bearing the Amell crest, a pair of birds perched on an austere collection of lines. Flickering, warm yellow light poured out from the windows of the enormous house. There could be no doubt about it; this was the Amell estate, and Lord Amell—Hawke—was home.

Suddenly the feeling that this had all been a terrible idea overwhelmed her. What would Hawke possibly think of her, bedraggled, dripping wet, and flat broke, with nothing but her honest word that her name was Amell? He would laugh in her face. No, worse—he would be angry. He would think she was a liar and a fraud. He would call the city guard and have them arrest her, and they’d turn her over to the Templars and she’d be sent to the Gallows—

With trepidation rising so fast it threatened to stop her hand in mid-air, she raised her fist and knocked.

The door opened. It took everything she had in her not to jump. Light poured from within onto the rainsoaked street, revealing a gawky elven teenage girl.

“You’re not Hawke,” Yvanne blurted stupidly.

The elf girl shook her head. “No, ma’am. But this is his estate. Can I help you?”

“I, um, need to speak to him. About a private matter. Assuming he’s alright with being disturbed—of course, it’s very late, I can come back tomorrow—or not at all! You know what, I’d honestly better be on my way—”

“I’ll fetch him right away,” the elf girl said, and disappeared back inside the house.

It couldn’t have been more than a minute between the elf girl’s departure, and the sound of muffled voices and approaching footsteps. But it may well have been a full eternity.

At least the landing of the Amell estate was shielded from the rain. 

The door opened again, and the terror seized Yvanne completely, rooting her to the spot.

Hawke stood half-hidden behind the heavy oaken door. His puffy eyes were bloodshot, his dark hair unkempt. He wore nothing but a stained maroon house robe.

“—Isabela, I told you, I’m just not feeling up to Wicked Grace tonight—oh!” He blinked at her, straightening and awkwardly adjusting his robe. “You’re not Isabela. I’m very sorry, I thought...well, nevermind what I thought. Can I help you? Do you need something?”

“I...uh…” 

He didn’t look much like her. Light-skinned, straight-haired, tall and broad-shouldered like the stories said, but somehow shrunken in on himself, as though he were hiding. They couldn’t possibly be related. There was no connection between them. This whole idea was idiotic, farcical, she ought to leave immediately—

“My name is Yvanne Amell,” she said. “I’m the daughter of Revka Amell. And I think...I might be your cousin?”

He stared at her. His arms dropped to his sides, and the door to the estate hung fully open. 

“My cousin?” he said as though struck over the head with a frying pan from behind a blind corner.

“I know it’s very late,” she said, stumbling over her tongue. “I can come back tomorrow—or not at all—”

Suddenly she found herself being firmly held by the shoulders, her escape prevented. Hawke was looking at her in astonishment. There was mist in his eyes.

“Please,” he said, “ _ please,  _ come in.”


	16. Chapter 16

Hawke let go of her, embarrassed, and stepped aside to let her in. “I’m sorry it’s a bit of a mess. I haven’t been taking visitors.”

Yvanne looked around the enormous, beautiful home, with hardly a single decorative pillow out of place. “Yeah, real pigsty,” she said, and immediately cringed. Why would she say that? Did she  _ want  _ her single remaining family member to hate her? Assuming he really _was_ family.

While she boggled at it all, she dripped rainwater steadily onto the carpet. Hawke noticed before she did. “Oh, no, you’re soaked—of course you are, it’s pouring. I’m sorry I kept you waiting—Orana, could you get Yvanne a towel?”

Right away the elf girl disappeared, reappearing moments later with the fluffiest towel Yvanne had ever seen. It felt strange against her skin. What was it made of?  


“It’s fine,” she said, haltingly. “It’s not even cold out.”

“Yes, but still. Do you like tea? Let’s have some tea. Orana, could you put on some tea?” Orana left for the kitchen to put on the tea. Yvanne didn’t particularly like tea, but she wasn’t about to mention that. With Orana gone it was just her and Hawke in the foyer, her patting her hair dry, him nervously twisting his hands.

“Er, you should probably have a change of clothes, too,” he said distractedly. “You look about my m-mother’s size—afraid I don’t have anything else. Orana, could you show Yvanne—? Blast, she can’t hear me, she’s in the kitchen making tea. I’m—”

“It’s fine,” Yvanne said before Hawke could apologize to her again. “I’ll dry fast by the fire.”

“Oh. Yes,” said Hawke, visibly relieved. “Yes, I should build it up. Tea by the fire...and we can talk…”

A fire was burning in the fireplace, low but alive. Hawke puttered around in its vicinity, nudging it with a poker, and it leapt implausibly higher, though he’d barely touched it. Yvanne came over to stand by it, feeling the cold leech out of her bones, but not feeling quite comfortable enough to sit. The silence between them stretched more and more intolerably awkward, until Orana finally brought out a tea tray.

“Please,” Hawke said as she set it down, “do sit.” 

Yvanne sat, even though she was still damp, and probably ruining the upholstery. Neither of them touched the tea.

“So, ah,” Hawke cleared his throat, but seemed to have misplaced the rest of his sentence. He scratched his beard. It looked a few weeks old at most, coming in patchy and uneven. He looked like a man who shaved under normal circumstances. “I’m sorry, not that you’re not welcome, but—why are you here?”

And she’d so hoped he wouldn’t have asked that right away. She bit her lip. “I don’t know.”

He blinked at her.

“Look, I get that this is weird,” she said, all in one breath. “I don’t even know what I want from you. If anything. Certainly you don’t  _ owe  _ me anything. But I haven’t laid eyes on any of my family since I was nine years old. And I heard the name Lord Amell spoken in Highever. And I wanted to know about my family, and you were the only one I could find, and...here I am.” 

He looked at her with sudden and impossible compassion. “I see,” he said. “And ah, you said you were Revka’s daughter?”

“I don’t really remember her. I hardly remember Kirkwall at all, even though I was born here. It’s certainly, uh…”

“You get used to it,” Hawke said, trying for an encouraging smile. “It’s not so bad once you acclimate to the smell.”

“How long does that take?”

“I don’t know. I’ll let you know when it happens to me.” He gave a weak laugh, but it came out almost creaky, as though laughter hurt him. 

He picked up a tea mug and held it in his lap, not drinking it. “If you’re Revka’s daughter, then...pardon me, but I thought all of Revka Amell’s children were found to be mages and taken to Circles.”

_ All?  _ thought Yvanne. She knew about her eldest sister who she’d never known...but  _ all?  _ All five of them? When she had first been taken to Kinloch, Yvanne had spent long hours fuming at the thought of her father and sisters getting along perfectly fine without her. Better without her, even. How she had hated them, for daring to be happy without her, for daring to continue to live their lives together when she was suffering alone.

But that hadn’t been what had happened.

Hawke was still waiting for her answer. She had to force the truth out of herself water from a stone. "I grew up in Kinloch Hold.”

“Kinloch,” Hawke repeated. “So you’re from Ferelden.” He gave her a watery smile. “I was born in Ferelden, you know. My family lived in Lothering until the Blight. We came here as refugees along with everyone else. That was a time, hah. I had to work as a smuggler. That first year my brother and mother and I lived all in one room in my uncle’s house, can you imagine? We were so desperate to get out of there, but now I miss it more than anything. Odd, isn’t it?” He laughed uncomfortably.

She stiffened. The Blight brought back uncomfortable memories for her of a different sort. But Hawke was lost in his own memory and didn’t seem to notice. “I’ve been to Lothering,” she said absently instead.

A clock was ticking somewhere.   


“Look, if,” Hawke cleared his throat, “if you need a place to stay, my home is open to you.”

He cut her off before she could object. “I won’t ask you how you left Kinloch or how you got here, I can fill in those blanks myself. Tell me as much or as little as you want, I won’t press, or judge. I know how it is out there for a mage.” She must have looked doubtful because he continued. “I promise you’ll be safe here. My partner is active in the Mage Underground, he helps apostates all the time. Look—I’m a mage myself.” To demonstrate he conjured a bright sphere of spirit energy and held it in his open hand before letting it dissipate. 

This  _ did _ catch her off guard. “I  heard a rumor that you were an apostate,” she admitted. “But I heard a lot of rumors about you.”

He laughed a little more easily this time. “Varric does like to encourage them. Probably for the best that there are so many that nobody believes the true ones.”

“Right. Well, you definitely weren’t at Kinloch, so what Circle were  _ you  _ in?”

He blinked. “Oh. Oh, I was never in a Circle. My father trained me, and my sister."  


That stunned her. She imagined what it might have been like, to be trained in magic by her mage father. Would she still have hated her magic then? Perhaps not. Perhaps her whole life could have been different. Perhaps  _ she  _ would have been the one living in this estate, not this man who didn’t even use the name Amell.

“But I really mean it,” Hawke went on. He stood and approached, hovering, threatening to embrace her. “We’re family, so you have a home here. For as long as you need. There’s plenty of room here, of course—too much, if you ask me. You can sleep in my mother’s old room, I never go in there anyway. Orana does all the cooking, so no need to worry about that. Do you mind dogs? Flower is around here somewhere. My partner doesn’t care for him, claims he’s a cat person, but I know better. You’ll love him—my partner, not my dog, hah—he’s a mage, too. He runs a clinic in Darktown, that’s why he’s not here right now. He’s working late again. Really, he’s wonderful, I’m sure you’d get along…”

Yvanne was getting entirely sick of Hawke mentioning his partner. She hated the way he said it—‘my  _ partner,’  _ in that syrupy way that made it obvious that the relationship was new. Every time he did it his eyes went soft and gooey. She’d been like that once, with Loriel. Her mood, already ambivalent, took a decided turn for the sour.

“Sorry,” Yvanne cut him off, “could you explain to me exactly how we’re related?”

Hawke brightened. “Yes! There’s a family tree around here somewhere. I’ll show you. Come, come!” He went to one of the gleaming, polished chests and rummaged in it, withdrawing a handful of heavy parchment scrolls. He picked out one particularly wide one and laid it out carefully on a nearby desk, weighing down the corners with four beautifully polished stones. Eagerly he waved her over.

The family tree was beautifully illustrated with tiny portraits of each Amell, richly dressed and ornamented. Beside each portrait was a block of close-written text in such an elaborate hand that she could not make it out, along with lines and lines of annotations along the edges. The tree stretched so far up that surely the majority of the people in the document were now long dead

Hawke plucked a little golden hand-shaped pointer from somewhere and used it to indicate the parchment, avoiding touching it with his hands. “Here you are—and your sisters of course—daughters of Revka and Kiran Amell. I never realized that he must have been Rivaini...I don’t know much about him, I’m afraid. Perhaps you could tell me and I could add to this document, ah? That might be a pleasant pastime.” He produced a cracked smile and moved on. 

Yvanne had never thought of her father as being Rivaini. He looked like her and her sisters, and not much like other Fereldans, but she had always taken that as a sign of their nobility, like Queen Asha Campana of Antiva. It had never occurred to her that her father was  _ from  _ anywhere, that he hadn’t simply sprung fully formed from the aether as her father.

“Revka was the daughter of Fausten Amell, and sister to the unlucky Damion—accused of smuggling, and bankrupting his poor father in the process of futile attempts to prove him innocent. Fausten was the son of Lord Thaddeus Amell, our great-grandfather. So I suppose that makes us third cousins! Thaddeus had another son, Lord Aristide, my mother’s father…”

Hawke carried on in this fashion well past Yvanne’s capacity to listen to him. Instead she stared at the little oval portraits of her estranged noble clan. How strange it was to think of these ink-and-paper people as her family, as people who might have loved her, had her life gone a different way. 

“...but they’re gone, now, too.” Hawke fell silent, pained.

Yvanne was still looking at the portrait of her mother. Had she really looked like that, pale-haired and long-chinned? The woman whose scraps remained in Yvanne’s memory smelled of rosewater and clean linen—but her face was a cipher. She did not recognize the woman in the portrait. Strange how Hawke had known right away who she was, when Yvanne herself didn’t.

“Do you know where my mother is?” she said, not knowing that she intended to say the words until they left her lips. 

Hawke gave her a pitying look, and she felt a hot flash of hatred for him, just for that. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but I don’t. Nobody does. There were rumors, I’m to understand, that she went to be her husband’s family. I suppose that would be in Rivain—Dairsmuid, probably. But that’s just rumor. All I know is that she took the loss of her eldest quite hard—but you know that, of course,” he added quickly.

Yvanne imagined her already-mostly-imaginary mother weeping in the streets, begging on her knees for salvation, all out of love for her eldest child. Revka had never cried for Yvanne like that. Revka had left Yvanne on purpose. 

“You really don’t know anything, then?” she said despondently. “What about my sisters?”

Hawke shook his head. “I’m sorry. Only that none of them would be the Gallows, being Amells. They try to keep families separated, you see…but you know that.”

She did know it. And now she had lost a hope that she hadn’t known she even had. Some part of her had been imagining that Lord Amell—Hawke—would somehow be her gateway to the rest of her family. That perhaps her mother would be here, against all odds, waiting for her. That this could be her home.

But it wasn’t. All there was was this man, surrounded by riches, living a life she would have killed for, totally unaware of everything he had taken from her.

So she simply stood there with her fists clenched, holding back ridiculous, childish tears.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help,” Hawke said, worrying his fingers. “You have to understand, I’m an exile here myself. I only know anything at all about the Amells from my mother. And she was always closer with Carver, before he...well.” He sighed. “I wish more than anything that I could ask her about our family now.”

Yvanne had nothing to say to that. 

“Maybe we can find something later,” Hawke said, with an almost manic optimism. He grabbed her hand. “We have some leads. I have contacts I could write to. The Amells aren’t what they were, but I still have some pull. And money always loosens lips. My partner has contacts as well, he might know something. We can ask him when he gets back from the clinic! I know it seems very hard right now—I remember how hard it was for me.”

How hard it had been for him! How hard for him, here in his golden palace, swathed in silk, waited upon by cringing elven servants, him who had never so much as seen the inside of a Circle!

“But we’ll figure it out!” He smiled at her. He still hadn’t let go of her hand. “Here, let me show you to mother’s room—it’ll be your room now. You look about the same size as she w-was, you could certainly fit into her things. And anything that doesn’t fit Orana will alter. Better they get used by somebody, rather than eaten away by moths. What a depressing thought. Let’s not think it. Come, come!”

“Wait—” He tugged her up the grand staircase to the second floor of the estate. The red carpet was decadently soft on the soles of her thin shoes.

“It’s a bit dusty in here, I’m afraid—I haven’t gone in there for weeks, and it felt wrong to ask Orana to clean an unused room, but that’s all different now. Are you hungry? You must be—I’ll have Orana send something up. Of course feel free to arrange the furniture however you like, I’ll help you.”

Yvanne looked around the darkened room as Hawke flew from corner to corner, lighting the gas lamps to reveal more and more of it. It was finer than any quarters she had ever known, even as the mistress of Vigil’s Keep, which had after all been a military posting, and not a nobleman’s estate. “Hold on—”

“—and tomorrow I’ll show you around Kirkwall properly. It can be a little overwhelming, even for an experienced Kirkwaller. My friend Merrill still gets lost  _ all  _ the time. It’d be charming if it didn’t make me so worried. To be honest, it would be good for me to get out of the estate. M-my mother died recently, and I lost my brother and sister not long before that, and it’s been, well—well, it’s been difficult. You know, if it weren’t for my partner, I don’t know what would have happened to me these past couple weeks, haha!” The manic edge was back in his voice.

Then he clasped her by the shoulders and beamed again. “So I want you to know, I’m  _ really  _ glad you’re here. Really. I have some wonderful friends, a wonderful partner, but nothing can replace family. We’re each all the other has left”

This sent her over the edge. All he had left, indeed! Him with his silk robe and servant and  _ wonderful  _ friends and his oh so  _ wonderful  _ partner. She struggled out of the embrace, skittering to the corner by the door like a feral dog. “Actually, _ ”  _ she said, breathing a little heavily, “I don’t plan to stay.”

He drooped like a puppet with its strings cut. “Don’t plan to stay? What do you mean? Of course you have to stay—”

“I don’t have to do a damned thing,” she said, feeling for the doorknob behind her, finding it, and escaping.

“Wait—” He nearly tripped over the finely woven Orlesian rug as he chased after her. “I don’t understand. Have I offended you somehow? Please tell me!”

“You haven’t offended me,” she lied. “I’ve simply achieved my aim in coming here. I’ve found out everything you had to tell me about my family. We have no further business together.”

“That’s not true! We haven’t exhausted our leads! I know you don’t know me—but you could!” he pled. 

She was struck by how pathetic he was. This was the legendary Lord Amell, who consorted with apostates and pirates and smugglers. Near as she could tell all the stories she had heard were true, and what did all that add up to? A sad unshaven man in a stained robe, begging a woman he didn’t even know to come live in his house.

“And I could help you find the others! I’ve been known to achieve remarkable things, you think those rumors about me are totally baseless? Please, you don’t have to stay  _ here  _ if you’re uncomfortable _ ,  _ but at least let me have Varric put you up at the Hanged Man.”

“Stay in Kirkwall?” Yvanne made a disgusted face. 

“It’s not so bad, once you get used to it.”

“I could hardly get used to Templars roving every street like weevils—”

“You don’t have to worry about that!” he insisted. “I’m a very powerful man in this city. The guard, the Viscount, even the Knight-Commander, they all look away if I ask them to. Nothing would happen to you while you lived here. I could protect you. You’d be safer here than practically anywhere else in Thedas.”

“And have nothing but your personal power between me and the Gallows? With that wretched place barely a stone’s throw away?” She clenched her fists. She could hardly believe the nerve of this man. “You have no idea the kind of terror of that place I grew up with. Kinloch was bad enough, but as long as the Gallows existed, they always had something worse to threaten us with.”

“I do, though—my father—my partner—”

“Your father!” she said, furious. “Your partner! Their lives, not yours. You have  _ no idea  _ what it was like. You have  _ no idea  _ what I have been through! We have nothing in common. Nothing at all.”

“But we’re family,” he bleated. How pathetic, she thought, to want things. How disgusting. “We’re all the family either of us has left.”

“We aren’t family,” she said coldly. “We happen to share an ancestor, four generations back. A thimbleful of blood. What could that possibly mean for the two of us now?"  


“I still want you to stay,” he said, helpless.

“You don’t know me,” she said furiously. She didn’t understand why her throat was so tight, or why her vision was blurring. “You couldn’t possibly want that from me. You have no right to want that from me.” 

Of course he didn’t know her. Who knew her? Loriel had—no, not even Loriel. Loriel had been with her all her life, through childhood and adolescence and adulthood, and at the end of it neither of them had known the other at all.

She paused with her hand on the doorknob. Then she forced it open, cutting her last tie.

It had started to rain harder while she’d been talking to Hawke, and it was fully the dead of night now. She was now right where she’d started before she’d come here—penniless, alone, with only a vague idea where to go next.

Well, not exactly penniless. She’d had to foresight to swipe one of Hawke’s candlesticks, and she was pretty sure the gilding on it had to be worth  something.


	17. Chapter 17

Yvanne searched nearly an hour for a pub that wasn’t the Hanged Man, got horribly lost, and somehow ended up at the Hanged Man anyway. Was the damn place somehow the only pub in the city? But by that point she was sick and tired of walking, and so went ahead inside.

It was less crowded now, but for whatever reason, still serving. Though this time, her prospects for getting some unscrupulous lecher to put her up didn’t seem nearly as good.

She’d have to barter. How hard could it be? She’d done it before in the Denerim markets, and she'd carried Hawke's stupid candlestick all this way.

Five minutes deep into a screaming argument with the bartender about how much exactly the gilding on the candlestick was worth, she saw motion in the corner of her eye as someone approached.

“What’s with all the fuss?” said the outlandish woman she’d met before—Isabela? She wasn’t jingling quite so much this time. She was barefoot and divested of most of her gold. Her mussed hair and squinty eyes suggested that she’d been sleeping.

“You again?” Yvanne said, not lowering the candlestick. “What, do you live here or something?”

“I’ve got a room here. And what about it?” She raised an eyebrow. “The real question is why you’re waving a candlestick around and causing all this fuss."

“If this ginger idiot would just take the damn candlestick there wouldn’t be any fuss.” She rounded back on the bartender. “Look, you wretched man, this is _ real gold, _it’s more valuable than anything you’ve ever seen in your life.”

“She with you, Bela?” sighed the bartender. 

“Sure she is,” said Isabela, and turned smiling to her. “Now how about you stop waving that thing around before you hurt someone?”

“I’ll _ definitely _hurt someone if you don’t leave me the—”

“Come on, now,” said Isabela. She snatched Yvanne by her candlestick-wielding elbow and all but dragged her to a secluded nook. The other woman was a good deal stronger than her; Yvanne doubted she’d be match for her, without magic.

“Right,” said Isabela, letting her go. “Care to explain?”

“Care to mind your own business?” Yvanne shot back, yanking her arm away.

“Well, not if you’re going to be bludgeoning my favorite bartender.”

“I’ll bludgeon _ you.” _

“Really? Will you? Go on, then.” Isabela took a seat on a bench and swung an ankle onto her knee, leaning back.

“Look here,” Yvanne said, jabbing the candlestick in her direction, but decidedly not doing any bludgeoning. “I have just about _ had _ it with all of this. I’ve been robbed, blackmailed, menaced. I’ve gone without food or drink or sleep or comfort, nearly puked my guts out, lost about everyone I’ve ever cared about, put up with your dwarf friend’s horrible jokes, been sobbed on by a soggy nobleman, and now I’m being prevented from even buying myself a drink. I’m at my _ fucking _ limit and I am—sick—of—all—this—_ shit!” _

The other woman nodded. “Been there. Want a drink?”

“No thanks,” Yvanne said exhaustedly, and collapsed into a chair. She pressed the heel of her palms into her eyes. Maker, she was tired.

Isabela sighed. “Look,” she said. “About earlier—I didn't mean anything by it. I saw that man come at you, and couldn't help but be reminded of myself when I was younger. But I belong to me, and you belong to you, so I'm sorry for the misunderstanding."

And no wonder. Yvanne looked a good deal more like Isabela than like her cousin. “I’m not that young.”

“Never said you were. Just thought you looked a little lost.”

“And what about it?”

They sat in silence for a moment.

“Varric told me who you are and what you were doing here,” Isabela said eventually. “Sorry if you didn’t want people to know. He can’t resist a good secret.”

“Figures,” Yvanne muttered. But she supposed it didn’t really matter. She wasn’t an apostate, or a deserter. Nobody was looking for her. Nobody cared about where she was, one way or the other.

“So judging by the fact that you seem to be trying to barter for booze with one of Hawke’s candlesticks, I guess meeting him didn’t go over too well.”

“How do you know this is Hawke’s?” Yvanne said defensively.

Isabela tapped it one of the candelestick's stems, slightly bent. “I remember the exact incident where this got dented. It involved a burglar, a coopful of chickens, and a very ornery—well, nevermind. It’s from Hawke’s place, I recognize it.”

“Aren’t you perceptive.”

“You have to be, in my line of work.”

Yvanne put the pilfered candlestick on the (uncomfortably sticky) table. “Want it back?” she said, shamed. “Don’t think I’m having much luck persuading the damn bartender it’s worth anything.”

“No, no. I encourage petty theft, as a matter of principle. Actually, if you need a fence, I know a few guys.”

“Uh. No thanks.” She looked at her distorted reflection in the shiny gold. “I get that he’s your friend, but talking to him...I just couldn’t.”

“Just because someone’s family doesn’t mean they’re _ family. _Like I said. Been there."

“Well. Thanks.” Yvanne hesitated. “I heard the dwarf calling you ‘Rivaini.’ Is that where you’re from?” 

Isabela shrugged. “Why do you want to know?”

“I might go to Rivain.”

“What for?”

_ Because there is the barest chance my mother might be there. Because I have nowhere else tolerable to go and nothing else tolerable to do, and if I don’t do something, I might just fucking kill myself. _

“Don’t really know," said Yvanne.

“How are you planning on getting there, then?”

“I’ll figure something out.”

Isabela gave her a look that was endlessly, awfully patient.

“Look,” she said, “judging by the fact that you’re bartering with stolen candlesticks, I’m guessing you aren’t long on funds. You can try and stow away, but that’s risky. I wouldn’t bother unless you’re really desperate. But I can do you one better—I can offer you a job.”

“What sort of job?” Yvanne said, wary.

“A few of us were going to go down to the Wounded Coast to deal with some slavers. Fenris is really chomping at the bit to go clear them out, but it’s hard to get a good crew together without Hawke—he’s everyone’s mutual friend. And as you saw, right now he’s a bit indisposed. Come with us, help do the job, collect the bounty, and of course there’s always looting to be done. And if that’s not enough, or you can’t find a ship, well, there’s always lots of jobs, if you’re willing to get your hands dirty.”

“What makes you think I’d be any use against slavers?”

“Let’s just say you seem formidable, hm? I can get you something better to bludgeon with.”

“I don’t know…”

She shrugged. “You’ve got til tomorrow morning. But it’s a standing offer. Like I said, always plenty of jobs.”

Yvanne sighed. She really did need the money.

“In the meantime,” said Isabela, “you can stay in my room for the night, if you want. Not that there’s much night left.”

“I—ah—”

“Meaning nothing untoward, of course,” she added, perhaps too quickly. “Not that I’m in the habit of taking in strays, but I shudder to think how the red the streets of Kirkwall would run with blood if I let you loose on them still wielding a blunt instrument.”

Yvanne snorted. Then she looked at her, really looked. Isabela even without her myriad of knives and pounds of jewelry seemed so invincible, and here she was being kind. Whatever Yvanne playacted at being, Isabela was the real thing. And she was really very beautiful.

She felt, absurdly, _ want. _

Not that it mattered, because Isabela meant nothing untoward. She wasn’t offering, so of course Yvanne wasn’t going to ask. Not when she actually wanted to. 

All of a sudden she was afraid. If she was capable of wanting something like that, what else was she capable of wanting?

“Thanks,” she said, “but I think I’ll go my own way.”

Isabela gave a slightly _ well-I-tried _shrug. “Suit yourself,” she said, then added, “and good on you.”

By this time the first rays of the morning sun were crawling across the sky. Yvanne could see the beginnings of it from the window. She left hurriedly, before she had the chance the reconsider.

Because she could see it, quite easily. Going off on an adventure with Isabela and her friends. Getting to know them, making some money. Probably Hawke, too; that was probably inevitable, if he was everybody's mutual friend. And once she’d made some money she’d drink it away, and it would be alright, because there’d be another job lined up, just in time. And she’d go again, replenish her purse, spend more time with those people. It hurt her heart, the way they reminded her of the little simulacrum family she’d built and then abandoned at Vigil’s Keep, and it would never be the same. But perhaps in time it would hurt less and less, and eventually not at all. Maybe next time Isabela _ would _mean something untoward, and she’d sleep with her, and that would be fine. She’d learn the inside jokes. She’d make some of her own. She would become another fixture in their shared lives. Would that be so bad?

Here in this city of bones and poison she would dwell, among something-like-friends, among something-like-family, and it would be better than being alone. A half-shadowed life, after all, was better than a full-shadowed one. A half-shadowed life contained also light.

But she had once dwelled _ all _in light. For those few months with Loriel, before it all went to pieces, she had known more than base contentment. She had known joy.

How could she now stand to live half in shadows?

—

After most of the morning had passed, she found the docks. She stole breakfast out of a merchant’s stall with the practiced ease of a girl who’d spent her whole childhood hiding things, and her recent adulthood one small disaster away from living in the streets. At the docks, she found a barrel to sit on and eat her mango and watch the dock workers. Her half-baked scheme of stowing away on a vessel bound for Rivain was in fact hardly baked at all, and was almost sure to fail the moment she tried to implement it. She didn’t even know which of these ships were bound for Dairsmuid—if any at all.

She carefully did not allow herself to think about what she would do when she got to Dairsmuid. Maybe nothing. Maybe she would go live in the swamps by herself and be a mad apostate. Or maybe she wouldn’t live. All she knew was that she needed to not be here, and she had nowhere else to go.

As she mulled all this over, a hand closed around her upper arm. It caught her off guard; and she was pulled into the alleyway

Her first thought—_ah! Here it is! I’m going to be robbed and raped, it’s about time!— _ was followed almost immediately by— _ no way in hell will the bastard have the satisfaction! _

She twisted, and bit down hard on her assailant’s hand. He yelled and released her; she spun to face him, deciding which of her most horrible spells to unleash if he touched her again. Her assailant was tall, broad-shouldered, holding a fighting staff wrapped with cloth strips, and—Andraste’s left tit, did he live in the sewers? What was that _ smell? _It was bad even by Kirkwall standards.

“What in the Maker’s name are you _ doing _here?” the man hissed.

“Eating my _ fucking _breakfast, you shit-stinking ratman! Let go of me before I beat you to death with your idiot stick, or—Andraste’s tits.” She blinked, as though her eyes deceived her, and all the fight went out of her. “Anders?”

She was shocked that she recognized him. It had been a few years since she’d seen him, but not _ that _many. Anders looked like he’d aged at least a decade. There was grey in his hair and lines on his forehead and around his eyes. He was dressed in what looked like the bedraggled remains of the Tevinter-style robes he’d once favored, pieces of his old Warden uniform, and an awful lot of rags.

“Maker,” she said, “what happened to you?”

He glared at her. “If you’re here to arrest me—”

“Arrest you?” At first she couldn’t even process what he meant by that. “Andraste’s fucking tits, I’m not here to arrest you! Hells, I didn’t even know you were _ here. _Is that why you grabbed me? Did you lose your mind along with your earring?”

He self-consciously, and probably without realizing he was doing it, touched his ear. “I thought—when I heard a woman named Amell was here, I thought the Grey Wardens had come to arrest and charge me for deserting. But I see you’re...not in uniform.”

"Charitably put," she muttered. She probably didn't look much better off than he did, even if she smelled better. "No, I'm not here to arrest you, and as a matter of fact my presence in this city has nothing to do with you in the first place."

“Alright, alright!” He snorted. “I see you haven’t changed all that much.”

“_ You _ have.”

He brushed a piece of limp greying hair behind his ear. “That’s true.”

He didn’t _ seem _ like an insane, gibbering abomination. She had so many questions. Most of them feauring rude words. The rest, variants on _Are you alright?_

The questions hung in the air like an acrid fog. They weighed her tongue and choked her. So Anders spoke first. “So if you’re not here to arrest me for desertion, what are you doing here?”

“Don’t.”

“Is Loriel here—?”

“_ Don’t.” _ It came out as a hiss of air.

He drew back a little in surprise. She wondered what her face had done. After a moment she regained control over herself. “You’re a clever fellow,” she said dully. “You can connect the dots.”

She didn’t dare look at him. If she saw pity, she would have no choice but to kill herself. “Why did _ you _come here, then?”

“You’re clever, aren’t you?” he said. “I’m sure you can connect the dots.”

Then she did look up. There was only one good reason that she knew of for Anders to come to Kirkwall. “So did you find him?”

“Don’t,” he said, pained. And that was all she needed to hear. 

So they stood in the darkened alley by the Kirkwall docks, two people who had known each other, once, lost in their own separate tragedies, together and alone.

“So why’d you stay?” she said eventually. “Kirkwall’s not exactly friendly to our kind.”

“That’s exactly why we had to stay.”

“We?” she said sharply.

He hesitated. “Justice and I.”

Her eyes widened. “So it’s true. You let him—”

“Yes. Keep your voice down, would you?”

“Can I talk to him?”

He glanced sharply at her. “I don’t think that would be possible.”

“We could go somewhere hidden—”

“No, not because someone might see. I’m a wanted man as it is," he said dismissively. "I mean, I don’t think it’s _ possible.” _

“What?”

“Justice is...he’s gone.”

Her heart thumped. “You mean he’s dead?”

“Not exactly. He’s not the same. When we—you know—we did more than join. We became the same being. I can’t tell where he ends and where I begin. We’re something different now."

She boggled. "What in the Maker's left trouser pocket are you talking about?"

"I’m not the person you used to know.”

"Good thing I knew both of you, then," she said irritably. "Nobody's ever the same person. You're not special."

“I’m sorry.”

“Can’t you at least try?” She tried not to let it sound like a whine. “I can help; I’ve learned so much spirit lore since you left. I wanted to help him, back at the Vigil, but then you...can’t you try?”

He hesitated. “Alright. But make it quick. I think he finds it uncomfortable to borrow my body like this.”

She held her breath. Anders blinked, and when he opened his eyes, they weren’t his eyes anymore.

“Justice?” she breathed.

“Yes.”

“Maker.” Impulsively, she reached up, put her hands on either side of his face. She had never expected to feel this particular pattern of Fade energy again. “It’s really you.”

The spirit smiled faintly, as though humoring her. It wasn’t anything like Anders’ smile, but a great deal like the smile she’d seen on Kristoff’s corpse.

“What’s it _ like?” _

Justice thought about it. “It is different from possessing a corpse. Most of the time I am only a passenger. I try not to intrude."

"That sounds unfathomably lonely."

"Anders did me a great service in allowing this. Together we will accomplish much.”

“It’s like you’re trapped, isn’t it?” Her mouth curled into a bitter line. “We would have found you another vessel.”

“I have no objection to my current status.”

“But are you happy?”

“I am fulfilling my purpose.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“I am fulfilling my purpose.” But the second time he said it—unless it was her imagination?—it almost sounded like he was trying to convince himself.

She’d almost forgotten what it was like to actually talk to a spirit. They could be awfully single minded. But Justice hadn’t been like that. He’d become more than his purpose. He’d lived in the mortal world, known friendship and love.

“Do you remember that sparrows’ nest I showed you?” she said dully.

“Yes. I remember it.”

“Good. That’s good.”

“Yes,” he said, slowly, as though it took great effort to retrieve the memory. “It was good.” But then his brow—Anders’ brow—darkened slightly.

“You should stay here in Kirkwall,” the spirit said. “You should help us.”

“Help you with what?” she said, caught off guard.

“Change. We are bringing justice to the mages of Kirkwall.”

At first she wasn't sure she'd heard correctly. Then she laughed out loud. “How?”

“Many ways," Justice insisted. "We are healing the wounds of the sick and the poor, to show the people that magic need not be feared. We are disseminating a manifesto. We have contacts who are able to put pressure on the Grand Cleric. We are helping apostates escape the Gallows, guiding them to freedom. Progress is slow, but extant. You could help us.”

"Manifestos? Civil discussion with the Grand Cleric?” She shook her head. “You've got to be kidding."

"I consider this a matter of deadly seriousness." Here Justice’s voice took on the cadence and timbre of Anders’ voice. She wasn’t sure who she was speaking to anymore. "How can you abdicate your responsibility to your fellow mages?”

This talk was starting to make her angry. It was one thing to hear this talk from a naive spirit, but from Anders? It was too absurd. “You can’t abdicate something you never agreed to take on in the first place. What do I have to do with other mages, besides the unfortunate fact that we all share a curse?”

“That is exactly the attitude that we are fighting against,” said Justice, or Anders, or maybe there really wasn’t a difference anymore. “Magic isn’t a curse, and it never was.”

"I can't listen to this."

“Mages are your people. You should seek justice for them.”

She scowled and spat. “And give up, what? Everything else?”

“Yes.”

A part of her wanted to keep arguing. Maybe she just enjoyed conflict a little too much. But the spirit's face—her old friend's face—was so pathetically earnest that all her anger drained away.

“Maker, Justice. It's not bloody fair, what happened to you." Her breath hitched. "You were becoming a person. You knew joy, you knew love. Now it’s like…” She shook her head. “I don’t even know what it’s like. But it’s not fair.”

She was met only with steady blue fire. “Of course justice is fair. What else could it be?”

That was about all she could take. “It was good to talk to you, Justice,” she sighed. “Please take care of yourself.”

The spirit said nothing further; the next time he blinked, the blue light was retreated, and it was only Anders again.

She looked balefully at him. “How could you? You as good as killed him.”

“Probably,” Anders said, miserable. “But it’s done. I can’t undo it.”

“Well,” she tried, suddenly guilty for aggravating what was clearly a sore wound. Could Justice hear them say these things? How much ‘access’ did he have to the outside world when he was hidden? “Maybe I could. Like I said, I’ve been learning a lot of spirit lore. It shouldn’t be impossible.”

“No,” he said hurriedly. “I don’t think that’s wise. What we’re doing is too important. When we’re like this, there’s so much I can do...I don’t need to sleep or eat much, and my magic has never been more powerful, and…” He caught the look on her face and trailed off. “It’s better this way.”

He caught her doubtful gaze. “It is,” he insisted.”

“If you say so.”

“Look,” he said, with obvious effort, “I don’t have too many friends in this city. The ones I do have...aren’t entirely sympathetic to what I’m trying to achieve. What I’m saying is I could really use someone like you in my corner.”

“No. No, I don’t think so.” She didn’t say she was sorry. It would have been absurd to say it.

“I see,” he muttered. “Pressing business elsewhere?”

“Of a sort,” she said vaguely. “I’m going to Rivain.”

“Got a ship, have you?”

“Not yet. Was working on it when you assaulted me.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You don’t happen to know which of these ships is headed for Dairsmuid? Perhaps one unlikely to notice a stowaway?”

He shook his head. “Come with me. I know someone who can help.”

—

Anders had contacts in the Mage Underground. He took her through the Darktown sewers—that certainly explained the smell. After a long, foul journey, they arrived at the—Yvanne could only call it a _ den— _of a man called Federico, who dealt in “herbs” and owed Anders a favor. Federico didn’t have a ship, but his cousin did.

Anders and Federico argued for a while, and finally nodded and shook hands. 

“Alright,” Anders told Yvanne. “I got you passage. Federico’s cousin has a ship headed for Dairsmuid. He takes apostates from the Gallows sometimes, but you’ll have to work as a windmage.”

“A windmage?”

“A shipboard mage who summons winds in case the ship gets becalmed. It’s not too hard. You’ll be fine.”

“Windmage? I've barely used magic all year. I haven't cast a wind spell in—Maker, I don't even know how long—and you think I can be a windmage?”

Anders shrugged. “Weren’t you the youngest Harrowed mage in several decades of Kinloch students? You’ll be fine.”

“Anders, I swear—”

“You’ll be fine!” He cleared his throat. “And another thing—if you want to make it in time, you had better leave now. If you miss the ship, you miss your chance.”

“What?! I have no idea how to get to the docks, or what this ship even looks like—”

“Calm down.” Anders rolled his eyes. “I’ll take you.”

And back in the sewers they went.

Along the way something occurred to her. “Hey,” she said. “How did you know I was here, anyway? Another one of your sewer contacts?”

“Sort of,” he said, and then paused for so long that she thought he was finished speaking. Then he said, “Hawke told me.”

“Hawke!” Yvanne said. “Is there a single person in this wretched city that isn’t acquainted with Hawke? I’m so bloody tired of hearing about Hawke.”

“Hawke’s a good person,” Anders said defensively. “And a great man.”

“He’s a pathetic milksop who’s never known a day’s hardship in his life,” Yvanne spat.

“That’s not true.”

She snorted. “What are you defending him for?”

“_ Not _that it’s your business,” Anders snapped, wavering, “but he helps. Our cause, I mean. Even if he doesn’t always agree, he still helps. And he’s been kind to me.”

Yvanne flashed back to the Amell estate, reprocessed some of Hawke’s ramblings. She put two and two together and was instantly overcome with the monstrous unfairness of it all.

“Oh, I see,” she said coldly. “You’re shtupping him. That explains it.”

It was hard to tell in the sewers, but she was gratified to see Anders flush. “Don’t call it that.”

“It’s all coming together,” she said in a mean sing-song. “Came for one boyfriend, found another. Traded up, too; the new one’s rich! Gotta say, Anders, looks like you’ve really got it made. Servants and silk sheets, and you still get to feel like noble martyr in the bargain—”

“Shut,” he said, “_ up.” _

The sewer filled with blue light and the too-intense vibration of the Fade. For one terrible moment Yvanne thought she’d really gone too far. Anders had never been her match in combat magic before, but he was an abomination now. The dismembered bodies of the patrol Wardens flashed through her mind.

Then the blue Fadelight winked out. Her heart thumped. Anders said nothing. He kept moving, so she kept following him.

“It’s not a bloody crime to be happy, you know,” he said eventually.

“_ Are _you happy?” she shot back.

He only shrugged. “We are fulfilling our purpose.”

They didn’t talk for the rest of the journey.

“I guess Federico’s cousin won’t mind that I smell like shit?” she said sourly when they emerged again.

“He’s used to it,” said Anders. “That’s him over there, in the blue coat. Get going, would you? I had to spend a favor on this. Tell the captain that ‘Feathers’ sent you.”

She spotted the man he was pointing to. His ship was a great deal bigger than the cog that had taken her to Kirkwall.

She turned to him. “Listen, Anders, I just wanted to say—”

“You’ve said it all already,” he said.

She shut her mouth, feeling like she’d already made every wrong choice. “Take care of yourself, Anders.”

He only nodded tersely. She thought about hugging him, and then thought better of it. 

She had a ship to catch.

Awkwardly, she approached the gangplank. “Um,” she said. “Feathers sent me.”

The man in the blue coat looked dubiously at her. “You?” he said, and shook his head. “Very well. Get on, you’re late.”

She stepped aboard, once again feeling useless and small amidst all the shipboard activity.

Since she had nothing to do, she went to the portside, hoping for a final glimpse of her old friend’s face. But it was too late. Anders had already disappeared in the crowd, and she had already never seen him again.


	18. Chapter 18

When the _ Maiden’s Teeth _launched, Yvanne dreaded the onset of seasickness, before remembering that she was here explicitly as a mage and therefore didn’t have to hide her magic anymore. At first she resisted—it had been so long, and a part of her was afraid she’d forgotten—but when the ship began to pitch and roll properly, her resistance crumbled. The spell for suppressing nausea wasn’t exactly simple, but cast well consumed little enough energy that she could afford to keep herself cloaked in its soothing aura indefinitely. 

She had spent her last voyage huddled miserably in the hold. Now she stood on the deck, nominally a part of the crew, feeling the spray of the sea

The captain was a grey-bearded Nevarran. He was, charitably, not particularly talkative.

“When do we arrive?”

“Soon.”

“What should I do if there’s already a strong wind?”

“Eh.”

Yvanne gave up.

The strangest thing was how the crew treated her. They were unfailingly polite—but it was a politeness born of fear. After all, all they knew about her was that she was an apostate, a criminal. That she technically wasn’t didn’t seem prudent to mention. Yvanne got the impression that most of them didn’t really know what magic was and wasn’t capable of, and that a few thought her already possessed. She tried explaining to them a few times, and got a lot of nervous nodding.

Having nothing to do, she practiced wind spells, dreading the moment she’d be called upon. The might of her magic had once sustained armies; now she wasn’t sure if she could even manage a decent gale. 

But as it happened along the journey the winds were fair, and Yvanne’s services weren’t needed. After several days of bored staring at the horizon, they made port.

Dairsmuid...wasn’t what she’d anticipated. It seemed so plain. She had been expecting—well, more than this. This port looked not too different from any large Ferelden town.

She made to disembark, eager to release her anti-nausea spell, when the captain stopped her. “Be back in two hours,” he said.

“Back?” she said quizzically. “But I’m getting off. Isn’t this Dairsmuid?”

He looked at her like she was stupid. “No,” he said, “This is Jader.”

“_Jader? _But that’s in Orlais!”

“I congratulate you on your grasp of basic geography.” He went back to examining the manifest.

“But I thought this ship was bound for Rivain.”

“Yes, yes,” the captain said irritably. “Eventually Rivain. But first, Orlais”

“And when exactly will we reach Dairsmuid?” she demanded, but the captain pretended like he hadn’t heard her.

Instead of going ashore, she spent her two spare hours steaming in her hammock belowdecks—furious at the captain for his rudeness, Anders for putting her on this ship, and the Maker for making her be born in the first place. She would come to regret this decision when the _ Maiden’s Teeth _ launched again, and her opportunity to set her feet on dry ground for a time disappeared.

The few days she had spent with nothing to do had been tolerable. The next few, less so. Yvanne could tell by the sun that they were headed west, not east. They were getting _ further _from Dairsmuid.

The prospect of nothing to do for weeks on end but be alone with her thoughts was unspeakable. So she cut the skirt of the dress she’d bought back in Highever in half, clumsily stitched the tattered remnants into half-decent trousers with a borrowed whalebone needle. If she wasn't needed as a windmage, she refused to be dead weight.

She was going to be a sailor.

She learned to tie knots, scale the rigging, read the stars. What she liked best were the songs. The sailors sang work songs as they heaved and pulled, and these she learned swiftest of all; their simple call-and-response structure made that easy.

The crew didn’t seem exactly thrilled by her participatory spirit, though she could usually find someone to show her how to do something that needed to be done. With her magically augmented strength, she made for a fine strong pair of hands, and the _ Maiden _could always use those. 

The only member of the _ Maiden’s _ crew that didn’t keep some level of distance from Yvanne was a Qunari woman covered in intricate tattoos. She was as much an outsider as Yvanne, and no wonder; as the only Qunari aboard, she stood out. Easily eight feet tall, she had biceps as thick as Yvanne’s waist, and a long white braid that wrapped around the sawn-off remnants of her horns. It was she who taught Yvanne many of the skills she needed to be a real member of the crew.

“So you’re Qunari?” Yvanne finally asked her, by way of casual conversation.

Immediately the woman’s massive hand darted out to cuff her across the ear. Yvanne saw stars. “What was that for!” she demanded.

“I am _ not _Qunari. I am Tal Vashoth.”

“Alright,” said Yvanne, who didn’t know the difference and had a hunch that asking would warrant another cuff across the ear. “What’s your name, then?”

“I am called Cheddar.”

“Cheddar?”

“Under the Qun I was told I was Arvaarad. Now I am no longer under the Qun, and I choose what I'm called.”

“So you chose to be called Cheddar?”

“Yes,” she said proudly. “And what are you called?”

“I’m Yvanne.”

Cheddar burst out laughing.

“What?” she demanded. “What’s so funny?”

The Vashoth woman grinned. “Someday when we are better friends I will tell you what that word means in my language.”

Yvanne harrumphed. But she took that to mean that they were at least some kind of friends.

From Jader they made port in Cumberland. The College of Magi met here, Yvanne was vaguely aware. The _ Maiden _ wasn’t staying in port for long enough for her to see much of it, though the soaring pillars and golden domes of Cumberland tempted. Surely this was a city large enough to fit several Denerims within it. She found herself feeling terribly provincial, and sorry that she wouldn’t be staying.

After Cumberland the _ Maiden _again made west. Yvanne nearly tore her hair out when she realized where the vessel was headed. She was further now from Dairsmuid than ever. She confronted the captain over this, nearly kicking down the door—with slightly more force than she could naturally produce.

“Yes, yes,” he told her, unphased by the crackling in the air. “First Jader, then Cumberland, then Val Royeaux. _ Then _Dairsmuid.”

“Are there any other stops that I should know about?”

“Get back to work,” the captain said disinterestedly. 

Her anger drained quickly, though, when they made port in Val Royeaux. It shamed her proud Ferelden heart, but it was the most beautiful city she had ever seen. They had a few days of shore leave, and received some of their pay besides. This astonished her; she hadn’t realized that she was getting paid. 

She wandered the markets and cafes with Cheddar, gawking at the ridiculously outfitted and masked Orlesians.

“I’ve been a sailor for many years,” said Cheddar, “but Val Royeaux still impresses me. Perhaps it is something of a backwater compared to Qunandar, but I like how colorful it is.”

“What’s Qunandar like?”

“Big. Efficient. Steel and smoke and wondrous works.” The corners of her mouth tightened. “But I don’t miss it.”

They passed a stand of colorful pastries that looked like tiny clouds. Cheddar’s face lit up. “Here, little bird, you have to try these. I’ve only ever seen them sold in this particular quarter of Val Royeaux.”

Yvanne bought one. It tasted exactly like how she always imagined clouds tasted, and disappeared almost at once. The sugar was so intense it made her teeth hurt. “Since when am I ‘little bird’?” she asked, wondering whether it would be worth her meager pay to buy another sugar-cloud.

Cheddar grinned sheepishly. “Sorry. I can’t bear to call you—what you’re named. It’s just so silly.”

“This coming from someone named Cheddar?” Yvanne said indignantly. 

“At least I _ chose _my silly name.”

They both laughed.

For the first time in years—for the first time since she’d met her—Yvanne hardly thought of Loriel at all.

—

The next leg of the journey was the longest yet. Yvanne’s hands grew thick and calloused. Salt settled in her hair, and the sun freckled her skin. As time went on, she had to rely on arcane warrior magic less and less to pull her weight. For the first time in her life, she actually had something identifiable as muscles.

One morning she forgot to cast the anti-nausea spell, and didn’t realize it til late in the afternoon, when despite its absence, she felt perfectly fine. The sea was within her now. She wondered how much sooner this might have happened if she’d forgone the spell entirely.

The other sailors never quite felt fully at ease with her, but that was changing, especially as she used magic less and less. Sailors had to trust each other in order to work together. But what she thought really did it was the songs. It was hard to sing with a person, striving for the same goal, hauling the same load, and not get to like them at least a little. The longer Yvanne spent as a sailor the more the crew seemed to forget that she was also a mage.

“You have to tell me,” she asked Cheddar one night. “Why Cheddar?”

The Vashoth woman wrapped her braid contemplatively around one massive finger. “I will tell you,” she said. “When I decided I would no longer be Qunari, it was not an easy journey. First I had to escape the Qun in mind and soul. That part was very hard. Then I had to figure out what I was to do with my Saarebaset—”

“Saarebaset?”

“Things like you. Eh, I forget the word—maj? Mage?”

A drop of cold slid down Yvanne’s spine. “Things?”

“In your language Saarebas means ‘dangerous thing,’” Cheddar said casually. “And yes, I knew they were dangerous. I knew if I ceased to be Arvaarad, demons could take them, and many would suffer. But they made me so sad. I didn’t want to hold their leash anymore.”

“You were like a Templar.”

“No,” Cheddar said irritably. “I was Arvaarad. Now I am Cheddar. Get it straight.”

“Alright, alright. So why Cheddar?”

“Oh, yes. I told my Saarebaset that I was freeing them. They begged me not to. They would be lost without me. That was the worst part. It almost made me reconsider! But I was no longer Qunari. I could not protect them, even if I wanted to.”

“What happened to them?”

“Oh, they killed themselves, I think,” Cheddar said, vague. “That is what they are supposed to do. I doubt they had the imagination to do anything else.”

“And you let them?!” Yvanne stood up, unconsciously pulling in Fade energy in preparation for—she didn’t know what.

“I could hardly have stopped them,” Cheddar said mildly.

“You could have freed them, too!”

“I told you—they did not want to be free.”

“You didn’t try!”

“They were Qunari, body, mind, and soul,” said Cheddar, unperturbed. “I had no say over their souls. That was their business and theirs alone.”

“Then—you could have stayed for them.”

“And remained a prisoner myself?” She shook her head. “Now that I was not willing to do.”

Yvanne had no response to that.

“That’s life for you.” Cheddar shrugged. “Do you want to hear the story or not?”

With effort, Yvanne let go of the Fade energy she hadn’t realized she’d been holding on to. “Yes.”

“Once I had freed my mind and my soul, I had only to free my body. Now that part was easy. I just walked away.”

“You could do that?”

“Sure. It was easy. I was stationed in Kont-arr, on the north coast of Rivain. Hardly the Qunari heartland.”

“Oh.”

“Anyway,” said Cheddar, “I was walking down the road, completely alone for the first time in my life. The first night, I slept under an white-barked tree, ate what I could find, drank from puddles of rainwater, and I did not see another soul. At some point along the way I realized I was no longer Arvaarad, but did not yet know who I would be. I could not stand to be Arvaarad, but neither could I stand to be nobody. Within that very hour I saw a man headed up the road, his cart pulled by a brawny goat. I did not speak his language very well, but I asked him the name of his goat. He answered that it was ‘Cheddar,’ and that was as fine a name to me as any, so I decided that it would be my name, too.”

“You named yourself after a goat?”

Proudly, “Yes.”

“That doesn’t strike you as demeaning? What with, you know—” Yvanne gestured vaguely at the remnants of her horns. 

“No more demeaning than accepting someone else’s naming of you like a dumb animal,” she said disdainfully.

Yvanne snorted. Fair enough, she supposed. She no longer thought herself an _Amell. _Perhaps some day she would leave _Yvanne _behind, too. Who would she be then? “I didn’t realize you were from Rivain. What’s it like?”

Cheddar thought on this. “Bit of a backwater,” she said eventually. “Swamps are full of crazy women summoning demons. But it was home, for a time. Maybe you’ll like it.”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

They lay in their hammocks for a time—Yvanne curled inward, Cheddar nearly spilling out from hers, legs dragging on the deck floor. The _ Maiden _creaked in her comfortable way. Somewhere beyond the haven of the ship that had become (however briefly) home, roared the sea.

Eventually, Yvanne said: “So will you tell me what my name means in your language now?”

Cheddar grinned. “No. It is much funnier this way.”

—

“Hey, Cheddar,” Yvanne said as Ostwick—yet another stop that Yvanne was not, in so many words, informed of—disappeared behind them. “You were kind of a Templar—”

“Arvaarad,” Cheddar corrected. “Not much like your toothless Templars.”

Toothless. Not the word Yvanne would have used. “Right,” she said, disheartened. “I’m just surprised. Of everyone on this ship you’re the only one who doesn’t seem to think I’m dangerous—”

Cheddar burst into laughter. “Of course you are dangerous!” she said. “At any moment demons could burst through and take your soul, and then you would kill us all in your mad rage.”

“That—that wouldn’t happen!” Yvanne said, indignant. “I trained to guard against that. I was the youngest Harrowed mage in a generation!”

Cheddar waved away her words with a wiggle of her fingers. “Trained,” she said dismissively. “That is just there to make you feel safe! You cannot train to guard against a demon. It will take you whether you will it or no, if it decides it wants you.”

“If you think I’m so dangerous, then why befriend me?” Yvanne demanded. “Why agree to work alongside me at all?”

Cheddar gave her a quizzical look. 

“The sea is dangerous,” she explained, as though Yvanne was a slow child. “But still we sail upon it.”

“But—”

She reached out to pat her on the back. “Do not worry. If demons eat your heart, I won’t blame you. I’ll know you couldn’t have done anything about it.”

Yvanne was so puzzled by this reaction that she said nothing at all. With Cheddar, this was a common occurrence.

“Enough about that,” said Cheddar. “Ostwick is little to write home about, but next we go to Antiva City. Now that is a marvel! Rialto Bay at this time of year is a flurry of colors from all the ships that come to trade there. You can find _ anything _in Antiva City!”

Yvanne found herself looking forward to it, and not thinking too much about what would come after.

—

But as it happened, Yvanne never reached Antiva City, because off the coast of Llomeryn, they were attacked by pirates.

The rival ship began to approach late in the day. Yvanne didn’t notice it at first. When the captain pulled her away from swabbing the deck to summon a wind, she didn’t think it too strange, although usually she was only ordered to use magic if the winds were really still. A merry gale already the sails that morning, albeit at an angle, when Yvanne took up her position

Her wind magic was woefully inefficient, even she could tell. Only a fraction of the magical energy she was expending was going into the gale itself; the rest sparked off as waste heat, crackling sound, and little lightning strikes that left her hair standing on end. Work like this at Kinloch would have seen her whipped.

“Can’t I stop yet?” she complained to the captain. “The wind’s plenty strong as it is.”

“No.” 

“But—”

“You’ve your orders.”

She grumbled, but maintained the wind. Only then did she notice the other ship on the horizon.

“Are we close to a port?” she asked a fellow crewmember, a dwarven woman named Molly who was adjusting the aft sail in earshot. “I thought we weren’t due in Antiva City for another few days.”

Molly only shook her head and grunted in response. By afternoon the captain had not changed his orders, and she was starting to feel faint. Cheddar brought her a midday meal of hardtack. 

“Is it normal for a ship to pursue another for so long?” she asked Cheddar, once she’d finished scarfing the unexciting sailor’s fare. 

Cheddar looked to aft, and the other ship there. It was still there—and closer now than ever.

“No,” she said. “Probably pirates. Barrelman spotted them earlier. Captain hasn’t said anything to prevent panic, but everyone knows, I think, or at least suspects.”

“Pirates?” Yvanne said anxiously. 

“Oh, sure. Plenty of their ilk around here.”

Yvanne watched the ever-less-distant blur for a time. Now she understood the captain’s orders, but would it have killed him to tell her? “How are they still behind us? I’ve been summoning wind all day!”

“They’ll have their own windmage,” Cheddar explained. “And they’ll be in a smaller ship, not so loaded with cargo. They will not catch us at once, but if they are very determined, they will catch us.”

“And then what happens?”

“We fight them, of course!” Cheddar laughed. “These canons are not just for show.”

“And if we lose…?”

Cheddar rubbed her chin. “Well, we might be killed. Or compelled to join their crew, or marooned on an island, or enslaved.”

“Killed? _ Enslaved?” _

“Well, that’s life for you.” Cheddar shrugged. “But I’ve never been killed by pirates before, so I don’t see why I should start now.”

Yvanne watched the ship in the distance. It didn’t appear to draw any closer, but that made it worse—the thought that they would be caught inevitably, however long it took if they did not make Antiva City first.

And it _ was _inevitable. At her peak Yvanne had commanded oceans of mana—and even then she’d consumed lyrium by the gallon to sustain her casting habits. Since then, she had abandoned magic, let it atrophy and rot away like a vestigial limb, and while she had forgotten nothing, she was not as strong as she had been. She could already tell that she wouldn’t be able to sustain a wind this strong for much longer; already she was feeling the telltale signs of mana exhaustion. 

“Get back to work, windmage!” the captain barked in her ear startling her out of her reverie.

“If I do that, I’ll be useless by sundown,” she protested. “Unless you happen to have a stash of lyrium potions somewhere aboard that you’ve failed to inform me of?”

He scowled at her. 

“The problem is you have me summoning wind,” she complained. “I can do so much more than that. If you’d let me—”

“Do your job,” said the captain. She sighed and began again to cast.

And still the pirates approached.

_ Well, we might be killed...or enslaved. _ Was that true? She had no way of knowing, but no real reason to doubt. But the _ Maiden’s _cannons were strong, weren’t they?

Now the pirate ship was close enough that even a dull eye could spot the colors they flew.

The crew was beginning to mutter. Some threw her dirty looks, no doubt holding her responsible for being bad at her job.

The next time Cheddar came to check on her, as the sun was setting, even she looked a little unnerved. “What’s going on?” Yvanne panted. She was scraping the very bottom of her well of mana.

“Things don’t look good,” said Cheddar. “Raiders out of Llomeryn can be handled civilly, but these aren’t Raiders. Those are Silesian pirates, sailing out of Tevinter."

Yvanne did not like how nervous she sounded. “What does that mean?”

“It means that we had better sink their ship before they engage. Or else.”

“Or else…?”

Cheddar shook her head. “Best not speak of it. If you are lucky you will not live to see it.”

“And what are the odds of us sinking their ship?” said Yvanne, seizing her sleeve.

Cheddar made a noncommittal sound and wiggled her hand back and forth.

Yvanne snapped. She ended the wind spell, damn what the captain said. She would have to take this into her own hands. The pirate vessel was obviously too far for ordinary combat magic. She could shoot all the lightning she wanted at them; it would still fall short, though it would probably fry plenty of the fish in the sea in the bargain. And any closer, the pirates’ own mage—and they would well have more than one, if they were out of Tevinter—would be more than a match for her. Her mind tumbled and spun and produced an idea.

“Cheddar,” she said, steady, “would a smaller ship like theirs withstand stormy weather as well as ours?”

“No, of course not,” she answered, puzzled. “It would be much more likely to sink. Piracy’s dangerous business, after all.”

Yvanne’s teeth flash in the growing dark. “Great,” she said. “I’m going to try something.”

Cheddar didn’t look convinced. “Are you sure?”

“I think we have no other choice,” she said grimly “You may want to hang on. And tell everyone else to hang on, too.”

For a moment she thought the Vashoth woman was going to stop her, that her essential Arvaarad nature would get the better of her. But she only shrugged, said “Alright, little bird, good luck,” and asked no more. 

Yvanne wasted no time, even as other crewmembers shouted at her for abandoning her post. Betrayer, they called her, faithless abandoner, but she paid no heed. She climbed the rigging with practiced if not expert ease, until the deck below was dizzyingly far away.

Vertigo she was used to. Being in the crow’s nest itself was another thing. Barrel duty—for the nest was little more than a barrel fastened to the main-mast—was often doled out as punishment, and no wonder; every motion of the ship was multiplied many times over, with every motion threatening to toss the barrelman into the sea. Yvanne regretted having no anti-nausea spell, but now there was no time for it.

What she needed was a storm. A big one. 

She had always been good with storms. Her earliest use of magic had been lightning, and many had told her that even her healing had felt like a shock back to life. It was all second nature to her, the thunder and the lightning and the wind and rain—not so much the constituent parts as the tempest as whole. Of course she was no good at tempered wind spells; her magic tended to spread out and spark and roil. A simple gale did not become her.

But a deadly storm at sea to sink a rival ship? This she could do. 

She reached inside herself, drawing from the endless well of power that she knew the Fade to be, and found—a puddle. A few drops. It was like forcing the ocean through a drinking straw.

Cursing her shortsightedness in not abandoning her post earlier, she wished for lyrium above all things. She had not had a drop of it in so long. But she had no lyrium. She had nothing. She was spent, utterly empty.

...no, not utterly empty. There was power yet inside her. Power in her blood.

Sickening memories overwhelmed her at the thought, worse even than the swaying of the ship. She reached again for the Fade, desperate for any other way. 

_ Please, _ she called out in panicked anguish. _ Please! _But there was nothing.

She would have to do it.

At first she worried that she would not remember how—but blood magic was not the sort of thing one could forget. She had no knife or dagger; only her own ragged fingernail. She had to make several attempts, and she had to press hard. At first she worried that she simply wouldn’t be able to break the skin, but finally her scrabbling succeeded. The wound bled, and it hurt.

Like a dam breaking, new power flowed through her. It came from a reservoir that was all her own. And from this reservoir, still clinging to the mast, she began to chant.

Nobody came up to stop her. She silently thanked her friend for it.

The storm that materialized off the coast of Llomeryn came on fast, even for a storm at sea. Mere minutes ago the sky had been clear, and now clouds gathered there like battalions of an army. As her lips formed the words—words that were not necessary, no more than the precise shapes of her fingers, although they helped—the storm grew. The waves rose taller, rougher. 

The clouds she had gathered rumbled darkly. Rain began to fall, first in drops, then sheets. They fell so cold and hard that it hurt her skin, and this pain, too, she channeled. Life was pain—where had she heard that? Life was pain, sure enough, and life was power.

She could feel the storm’s power. It dwelled in the clouds, in the growing waves, the rising winds. It filled her up even as her blood flowed. For one wild moment, she felt alive again.

Lightning streaked out towards the _ Maiden’s _mast, sure to strike—and at the last moment, she turned it away. Instead it hit the pirate’s vessel. In the distance—though it was increasingly hard to see—she saw a brief fire ignite before being put out.

The waves reared up taller than the mast itself; the _ Maiden _ surged up, crested, fell. She could no longer see the other ship, and anyway, now all her focus was concentrated on keeping the _ Maiden _ intact. She had more than an inkling that the only thing that now protected it was some fey power she had summoned from within herself—but which was not quite _ of _herself. But the storm was hers, and the ship was hers, as Vigil’s Keep had once been hers; and what was hers, she would protect.

Time froze, or compressed, or both. She could not have said how long she clung to the crow’s nest, crackling with blood and spirit, her awareness more in the wind and water than her body.

The storm raged.

Eventually, it ceased.

The _ Maiden _had survived.

She had no idea how she got down from the crow’s nest. Her world spun and sparked, the residual rain flattening her clothes to her skin and making movement all the more difficult. Rough warm hands studied her; the grey blur resolved itself into her astonished friend.

“Wow!” she told Cheddar, breathless and giddy. “I had no idea I had that in me!”

After that she knew no more.

—

Yvanne awoke in chains and darkness, sodden and frozen.

She tried to scream, and realized she was gagged. _ I failed, _she thought despondently. The pirates had captured them after all. 

No! She would not allow it! She would die first. She would _ ensure _she died first—

—but no. She had _ seen _the encroaching ship break and sink. Hadn’t she? It had been so dark. Perhaps she had felt rather than seen them go down.

She risked a wisplight, and as its greenish glow illuminated her surroundings, her heart sank. This was the hold of the _ Maiden. _Her own crewmates had put her in chains.

How long she sat there shivering in the dark, she couldn’t say. She’d never been in solitary at Kinloch. Loriel had always managed to protect her. She had no method of marking the time, save by her growing hunger and thirst; and even then this told her little, save that she was very hungry, and very thirsty.

And worse, she was _ tired; _tired in a way she’d never been before. Something vital had been wrung out of her. Even her connection to the Fade felt tenuous, a fog obscuring her sense of it. The blood magic, she realized dully. It had drained her so completely that, though enough time had passed by now that she should have full access to the Fade again, she had almost no mana at all. This was what Loriel had been doing to herself? It was completely unsustainable. No wonder the Tevinter magisters sacrificed their slaves.

The shackles chafed her wrists, and her shoulders ached miserably from the awkward position they’d been forced into, but the gag was the worst of it. It had been done inexpertly and pressed at the corners of her mouth, making it impossible not to drool.

But finally they came for her.

Two men, who she had trusted with her life less than a day ago, hauled her abovedecks, where relentless daylight nearly blinded her. It must have been high noon already. The _ Maiden _had survived, yes, but barely. The mainsail was in shreds. The jibe was gone altogether. The mast leaned at a crooked angle. 

But all the crew were alive. Alive, and staring at her, not a shred of pity in their eyes.

The men forced her to her knees.

She found Cheddar in the crowd, towering head and shoulders above the rest. Yvanne stared at her, pleading, but Cheddar only gave a little shrug.

Someone ripped away her gag. The captain approached her, keeping a careful distance. He looked only, and said nothing.

Yvanne fought the bizarre urge to apologize. She kept her chin up and looked him in the eye.

“Windmage, you are being tried for treason,” the captain said finally.

“Treason?” she burst out. “I saved all our lives!”

“You have lead this ship into needless danger. You have blown us hopelessly off course. You have all but destroyed this ship. All this is tantamount to treason.”

“I’m no citizen of any country,” she protested. “How can I be a traitor?”

“Y_ou are part of this ship!” _ roared the captain, “ _ and now you will answer to it!” _

She glared. “I did only what was necessary to preserve the life of this crew. At great personal cost. I’m no traitor.”

“She’s possessed, I say!” shouted a crewman. His name was Derrick. He had ruddy red cheeks and a fondness for dirty jokes. He’d shown her how to tie a bowline knot. “Demons dwell within her! Traitor or not, we must be rid of her before she dooms us all!”

Stone-faced, the captain turned to Cheddar. “You, Arvaarad. You know about demons. Is she possessed?”

“Cheddar,” Cheddar corrected absently. She scrutinized Yvanne with her bright blue eyes, and for a moment Yvanne was so bold as to hope. Then Cheddar shook her head. “Can’t say for sure. Demons are tricksy; it’s their nature. She might be possessed, and the demon yet hiding.”

“And do you suppose,” said the captain, “that an unpossessed mage would have been capable of what we saw?”

Cheddar shrugged. “Couldn’t say. Best assume every mage is possessed, if you’re not sure. Saves a lot of trouble in the long run.”

Murmurs of assent spread through the crowd.

“Please,” Yvanne said. “At least consider self interest! You’ve blown off course. With the damage to the ship it may take weeks to find your way back. Once my mana regenerates I could shorten that time to mere days.”

“That would have been so,” said the captain, “if you could be trusted.”

“Alright, then,” she replied coldly. “_ Don’t _ trust me. Fear me instead. You saw what I did last night. You all know what I’m capable of. Do you suppose, if you turn on me, that you’ll be spared my wrath? Release me _ now _and I may yet guide this ship to safe harbor. Keep me bound and you may be sure that none of you will ever see land again.”

Scraping at the corners of her soul for even a drop of mana, she managed to briefly make her eyes glow. Just to make a point. Just so that they would remember what she was.

It almost worked. Several members of the crew drew back or gasped.

Then the bosun—an Orlesian elf called Annette—called out, “She’s bluffing. She has no mana left. She said so herself! Arva—Cheddar, that’s true, isn’t it? They need time to regenerate, do they not?”

“That’s true,” Cheddar said reluctantly, not looking at Yvanne. 

“If she had any power she would have freed herself already,” the Orlesian snarled. “If she really had the power to slay us all and seize the ship, she would have done so. I suggest we do not wait to see whether she is capable of this. Execute her now for treason while we still can!”

“Bad luck to slay a mage at sea,” rumbled another crewman, a burly Marcher with a short blond beard. “The winds would turn on us. We would be lost for certain.”

This got murmurs as well. Thank the Maker, thought Yvanne, rejoicing, for all these stupid bloody sailor’s superstitions.

“That’s true,” said the captain, measured. “Bad luck to slay a mage at sea. But neither can we risk her presence.”

At length he considered.

Finally, the captain spoke: “Throw her overboard. The sea will decide her fate.”

Yvanne at least had the satisfaction of not begging as they hauled her to the edge. Even now at her most powerless the crew was loath to touch her; they dragged her by the chains.

She had one chance to look back at the _ Maiden _, at these people she had raised her voice with, these people she had trusted, at Cheddar who she had thought her friend. The Vashoth met her eyes. There was no trace of guilt in them. Regret, perhaps, but not guilt.

All of a sudden the crowd receded. She stood bound and alone at the precipice. 

“You will jump,” ordered the captain. 

“You can’t be serious,” she said dully.

“We prefer not to force you. We are good men. And I am sympathetic,” the captain said reasonably. “I understand it was not your fault. But you cannot remain aboard this ship. If we must use force, we will.”

Cheddar gave her an encouraging smile and a shrug, as though to say, _ Well, that’s life for you! _

Yvanne gazed at the choppy waves. How many miles would her body sink? How long would it take her to drown? Would it hurt? Would it be so bad?

She tried to think of some parting words, but found that she had nothing to say. Nothing at all.

Whether she jumped or slipped or was pushed in the end did not matter. She managed a single deep breath against all odds, and then she sank, dragged down by the weight of her chains. She struggled; it was a difficult instinct to suppress. Her hair and clothing billowed out, medusa-like. How quickly the light went away, how rapidly the pressure built. Only a moment ago she had bathed in sunlight and in air, and now her world was crushing darkness, crushing cold. 

Now this was truly the end of the line. The Fade would not save her. Her blood would not save her; it would hasten her death if anything. She could not escape the chains, and even if she did, what then? She could not swim forever. The sea would get her in the end.

Oh, and wasn’t it better this way? Wasn’t it neater? What in her life had been worth living, since she had left Vigil’s Keep? What a pointless farce it all had been. A drowning woman’s final gasping struggle, before succumbing to the totality of her irrelevance. How fitting, how neat.

Her lungs burned. Seawater poured into her throat. Oh Maker, drowning hurt. She had not thought it would hurt so much.

Then all of a sudden the pain receded. Her rigid limbs relaxed. It no longer seemed so bad to drown.

The blackness in front of her eyes faded to a pale and calming grey. It would be easy. It would be good.

Then somewhere something deep inside called out with the animal fury of a thousand generations: 

_ I _

_ want _

_ to _

_ LIVE! _

The pale grey of a peaceful death bloomed into a violent green.

—

Eventually she washed up on distant shore.

She had no memory of how she came to be there; not of escaping the chains (though she must have, for they were gone), nor of floating on the currents, nor of being deposited on the shore. It did not seem like she had been unconscious; she could not say that she had ‘woken up.’ At best it felt like she had been a passenger inside herself, and was only now fully in control again. When she searched for the memories, they were not there.

Best not to think about it, she told herself as she lay in the sand, the tide lapping at her feet. By some miracle she was alive. Why question it?

For hours she lay there, too tired to move. She drifted in and out of consciousness, half in dream and half in fantasy, not quite in either realm. Every time she managed to open her eyes, the sun had fallen further into the horizon.

Around dusk she finally sat up and examined her surroundings. The beach was deserted, littered with stones and shells and little creatures. The strangest trees she had ever seen grew further up the beach, swaying gently in the late-afternoon breeze.

Abruptly she was struck by a memory at Kinloch Hold. Back before Anders had tried to escape across the lake and gotten them all banned from outside time, they’d been permitted on the lakeshore. Yvanne had liked to swim, and Loriel had liked to sit on the rough grey sand and read, but sometimes she could be persuaded to come play. They’d waded in the shallows and looked for interesting rocks and shells and built lopsided structures in the sand. Then at night they would giggle and whisper about the island they would rule someday, as soon as they escaped. When had they stopped fantasizing about their secret island? Presumably the day they realized that they would never escape.

Despite everything, this place was beautiful. Soft white sand. A soft breeze of gentle air. The smell of salt and fading sunlight, the rustling of the trees. She watched as the sun sank into the sea and set the sky aflame, a panoply of color just for her. As it set, the stars came out, a sparkling veil with no moon to dim their shine.

She wondered if Loriel would have liked it here.

Then she bent over in shattered grief, keening, and for the first time, felt no anger, none at all.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (gives up all pretense that this story is meant to appeal to literally anybody but myself) this is wilderness survival fiction now

Her most pressing business was thirst. She thought half-madly to drink seawater, though she knew it would only make it worse. Then she remembered rain, and nearly tripped over her ragged hem in haste to get to the treeline. The bizarre forest defied comprehension, but was full of broad leaves and curling vase-like plants filled with rainwater. Tinged with nectar, it tasted oddly sweet.

Next came food; now that her throat did not burn with every swallow, she felt hunger again. She did not have to go far before she discovered some unknown fruit, huge and yellowish and tempting. She sliced it open with a spirit blade and ate the flesh within, pulpy and acidic, but good. Not sated but no longer starving, she sat beneath the swaying fronds, pondering what to do next, when a howling shriek pierced the air, coming from deep within the jungle. Time to leave, she thought, and hurriedly returned to the beach. 

The sun beat down brightly, the wind catching her hair. She stared into the surf. There was something strange about this place, something she could not name or describe. It felt different from any place she’d been before, though it left a half-familiar taste in her mouth. Like the air before a storm. Like potential.

_ Now what?  _ she thought.

A terrible certainty was growing in her. She walked along the beach shoeless in her sodden rags, the ocean roaring to her right, until she came only a few hours later to her own footprints in the sand, faded only slightly by ambitious waves. She’d been correct—this distant shore was an island.

She was stranded. 

—

Unwilling to die, she resolved to survive.

The vague sense of strangeness had neither abated nor resolved, but she elected to ignore it. The trek around the circumference of the island had left her throat dry and aching again. She started back off toward the jungle to scavenge more rainwater, then had a better idea. With some effort, she cast a spell for rain. Fade energy poured into the ocean, raising up pure water as steam. Previously cloudless skies filled with bulbous grey anvils, which opened up and released a torrential downpour. By the time the unnatural storm ended, she was drenched, but no longer thirsty.

What next? Food, she supposed. There were those yellow fruits in the jungle, and who knew what else? She may as well look, though she still heard shrieks and howls sometimes, when the wind was still—Maker only knew what could make a sound like that. But she did not get far before the jungle became hopelessly dense, navigable only by effortful violence. And worse, it was full of all manner of insect life, eager for a new subject to bite and sting. She emerged a few hours later covered in welts, struggling to maintain a force barrier around herself long enough to escape with at least some of her skin intact.

She sat exhausted and glowering, healing her skin as quickly as the return of her mana allowed. Very well, not the jungle. She could hardly eat nothing but jungle fruit, anyway, and she didn’t fancy dealing with whatever was making those horrible sounds. Luckily, the beach teemed with life; she spotted a blue-shelled crab skittering towards the tide, and with a force spell, slew it. It was a little squashed and unappealing in that state, but edible enough. She speared it, roasted it over a magical fire, peeled it, and ate it; even without seasoning, it wasn’t half bad. There hadn’t been much meat on the creature, but there were plenty more of them about. 

She felt extremely satisfied with her clever self-sufficiency, until a few hours later when she was violently ill. She vomited until there was nothing left but sickly green bile; and it wouldn’t stop, even when it was coming out of both ends. In the depths of her misery and regret she knew, in her long experience as a healer, that she was losing water faster than she could replace it, and that most people stricken like this were as good as dead.

But she was a spirit healer. The Fade could sustain her. So the episode remained only inconvenient and humiliating, not fatal.

She  _ would  _ live, she promised herself, worn out, but alive. So many times she had wanted to die, so many times she had contemplated doing the deed herself—until the  _ Maiden’s  _ crew had kindly tried to do it for her. So many times she ached not to exist, but she didn’t want that anymore. By Andraste’s flaming hair, she would live. She would. She would!

It didn’t occur to her to wait for rescue. Who would rescue her? So she built no signal, and no ship ever saw it, and that was just as well. No natural ship ever sailed the waters there.

—

After a few days of summoning rain every time she was thirsty, she knew she had to find another way. She was sick of getting sodden every time she needed water, and it was a waste of mana besides. That could be dangerous, if she needed it for cooking or healing or protection. But if there was a source of water deep inside the island, she wouldn’t be finding it any time soon. She needed to make a cistern, with only what she had on the beach.

The Circle taught only very limited magic, full of artificial limitations and inefficiencies. Yvanne hadn’t realized how limited her magic was until she’d left Kinloch and begun to learn from Morrigan, from the Dalish, from ancient tomes found in crumbling ruins. And though she’d never become any more than a novice in any of it, her broad but shallow study had left her well-suited to creative reinvention, the repurposing of old spells for new tricks, even some invented spells of her own. While rebuilding Vigil’s Keep, she had learned spells to shape stone and earth, and she could easily have made a cistern that way; but there was no earth here; only sand. It took humiliating hours to mold the sand into a shape that would hold its form—and even then, seawater she poured into it seeped away nearly at once no matter what she did. But—she suddenly remembered—sand could be made into glass, if it was heated. If it was heated very hot. But her elements had ever been water and air. The fires she made glowed dull red and orange, or yellow at best. Briefly she managed a fire that was nearly white, but only for a moment. After hours of casting, she had singed her skin, lost some hair, and drenched her rags with sweat, and come no closer. Finally, in agonized frustration, she shot lightning at the stupid thing, thinking to destroy it. The lightning struck, branched out, and instantly solidified everything it touched.

_ Oh,  _ she thought. Lightning was hot. Hot enough to make glass.

She spent the rest of her sunlight glazing the cauldron’s interior with controlled bursts of lightning, testing its integrity with seawater until she was sure it would hold. Only after this painstaking work was done did it occur to her that she could have just used treeshaping to make a vessel instead. She’d learned the art from Velanna, years ago, and hardly used it since. She’d entirely forgotten she could do it.

Somehow that broke her heart all over again.

She built a few more glassy cisterns around the shore, enough so that any rainfall would be enough fresh water for at least a couple weeks. 

Food was getting easier, too. She was learning what was good to eat on the island, how it needed to be cooked. What she had taken to be part of the strange coastal tree’s wood turned out to be fruits after all, filled with white flesh and something very like milk. The birds native to the island were tasty, but the seabirds rather leathery and bitter. She never risked the crabs again—the very thought of them turned her stomach now—but she discovered that other crustaceans found in the tides could be made safe to eat if boiled alive. Fish could be found in abundance, particularly at high tide, when they would become trapped in tide pools. Some of her culinary experiments ended much like her experience with the crabs, but every time magic saved her.

Shelter was next. She’d been sleeping on the sand, far enough inland to get some shelter from the wind, and for now that was good enough, while the climate was balmy. But it wouldn’t always be, and already the nights were getting colder. For this she resolved to try treeshaping; there was little else around to build a shelter with. At first the trees would not budge, so recalcitrant that she half-convinced herself that they weren’t really trees. But no, these were living things, and eventually they bent to her touch; her vague memories of treeshaping lessons with Velanna were coming back. A day’s effort netted her a clumsy construction of root and trunk, with a roof of leafy fronds, but it was better than sleeping on the ground.

Eventually she decided to risk another venture into the jungle. She picked a day when nothing else demanded her magical reserves and cast a force barrier around her skin with only a tiny slit to breathe out of. She made it a fair distance inland without being eaten alive, and there the jungle opened up. Marvelous colored birds eyed her curiously and feared her not at all; massive jeweled beetles lazed along the tree trunks; carnivorous plants snapped closed on passing flies. Here she found the source of the howling she’d been hearing—a troop of bizarre, furry creatures with huge, curious eyes that looked to her almost like little men. They tugged on her hair, poked at her with their long fingers, and whooped like anything. She felt foolish for having been afraid of them, and more than a little charmed. Now the jungle was hers, as well as the beach.

Her experiments with treeshaping continued; she learned to grow the tendrils tight enough to seal against the rain, sealing every last crack with treesap until she could stay through an all-day rain. She managed to expand the space so that she could comfortably stand or stretch out inside it, and even grew some furniture. Her work became fine enough to make vessels for water or food. She built more glassy cisterns to keep fresh water in, stockpiled fruit and root and fish and fowl, storing anything she could not use at once for experiments in cooking. The island contained a bounty; she would not starve here, however much she ate.

Whenever her cleverness failed, her magic didn’t. After a particularly sunny day, even her dark skin burned, and was painful and itchy to the touch. Magic saved her. Another day she fell from a tree, landed badly, and broke an ankle. She had to numb the area and set the bone before healing it, but magic spared her that, too. No error she made, as long as it was not  _ immediately  _ fatal, would stop her, and she was good at learning from her own mistakes. Day by day, the island yielded to her its secrets.

She had never in her life been so alone.

— 

The business of keeping herself alive kept her hands and mind and spirit occupied. Much in how she found satisfaction in rebuilding the Vigil working on the  _ Maiden,  _ she found satisfaction in building up what she now thought of as  _ her  _ island. 

So preoccupied was she that several weeks passed by the time she fully grasped her situation: that someday she would die on this island, without ever seeing another soul.

At first the enormity of her aloneness bore down on her like a storm cloud pregnant with thunder and driving rain.

And then the storm cloud passed, and she realized—would that be so bad?

Memories washed over her, of all the chances she could have taken for a life before she’d washed up here. The brothel in Highever, her cousin’s home, Anders’ offer, the  _ Maiden,  _ any of the cities she had stopped in. Every time she had rejected those chances and ended up here—but she found that she didn’t regret it.

She thought of the wretched state of the  _ Maiden,  _ how even trusted comrades had grown so afraid of her they’d tossed her overboard _ .  _ She thought of her poor pathetic cousin’s bewildered expression as she stormed from his manor with his property in hand. She thought of Anders flaring with Fade and fury in the sewers after she so carefully handpicked the thing to say that she knew would hurt him most. She thought of Rolan, cringing in terror before her as she threatened to torture him to death. She thought of all the men she had led to their doom, all the people who died screaming due to her negligence. She thought of Loriel, and every single instance in which she had ever hurt her in their long lives together, until she’d finally hurt her so severely that Loriel had been obliged to send her away rather than stand her for another minute.

She hadn’t meant to do it. But neither had she meant to wreck the  _ Maiden,  _ nor to allow so many to die at Vigil’s Keep, nor to ruin so many of the lives she touched. But was it so surprising?

For, after all, a mage was fire made flesh. Those who remained in Circles, those who took well to captivity, were suited to the training that rendered them harmless and helpless. But Yvanne was not the tame fire of the lantern light or heart flame—she was lightning from the heavens, bringing only destruction. 

Only now she felt no sorrow over it. For the first time in her life she did not regret that she had been born a mage. Without her magic she was a stranger to herself. The months she had spent suppressing it had rendered her a pale shadow of herself. Maybe there was no place in the world for Yvanne Amell, that did not require her to cut off pieces of herself.

Save this one.

So it was decided. She would stay here on this island, and while away the years in cool ocean breezes and sunny afternoons, eating fruit and fish and seabird, and not a soul would ever miss her.

That night she slept in her palm tree cocoon with a sense of peaceful satisfaction, knowing that the course of her life was now set, and she had no further decisions to make save what to do with her spare time and what to have for breakfast.

And then the whispering began.

—

They were only whispers at first. She could make out no words, not even impressions. At first she had thought them only the roar of the sea, the rustling of leaves, the whistling of wind. She supposed they must have been there from the very beginning, only too softly for even her Fade-touched senses to detect. Or perhaps she had willfully ignored them.

Spirits, it had to be spirits. The veil had to be thin here—and somehow she had failed to notice. Had her senses been so dulled by drink? Had she been so focused on mere survival? 

Or had she called them here herself?

Whatever the case, now Fade spirits crowded to this island like children pressing their faces to the glass of a confectionary shop, eager and desperate for a single glance, a smell, a taste, a sound, of the material world.

And all of them, each single one, called out to her.

The whispers did not stay quiet for long. Within a few days they rose to low voices, scraps of imagery in the corner of her vision. And some of them were growing louder.

Worse, she had begun to dream again. That last year in Vigil’s Keep she’d gone to bed drunk more often than not. And the year after, she doubted she’d slept sober more than three days altogether. Even aboard the  _ Maiden  _ she’d had her daily allotment of sailor’s rum. All those years of sanding her senses for the bliss of dreamless sleep, but now she hadn’t had a drop to drink in weeks.

Darkspawn dreams were one thing; but these were the awful too-real dreams she endured on days when she took too much lyrium. She hadn’t had lyrium in ages, but still every night she wandered the Fade not of her own accord. Spirits tugged at her hands and ankles, begging for attention. Like the Harrowing, but worse. 

Parts of the island became more than half-Fade. She could not step into them without losing her bearings; she could only make out the trees if she concentrated. If she looked at any spot too long, the place began to warp into its dreamself, and she would have to flee or else be lost.

They grew stronger by the day. Now she could pick out individual voices, rather than a single continual howl. And some voices were louder than others—

—no, not louder. Closer.

What was happening? She had been in places where the Fade was thin before, and it had never been like this. What was different about this place? What eldritch power twisted it like this?

Or else—what eldritch power twisted  _ her?  _

_ — _

She dreamt. She heard them speak, not in words but in feelings.

_ We saved you. You owe us. _

_ Owe you what, owe you  _ what, she begged to know, but on this the spirits were silent.  _ We saved you. You owe us. _

_ Alright, I owe you, fine,  _ she pleaded.  _ But what do you want? _

To this only silence.

She could no longer be sure whether she woke or dreamt. Some days she would be drawing water from her cisterns, only to realize that the water was a mass of writhing eels, and this was a dream. Others she would walk along fantasy floating platforms in the clouds, only to realize that the floating platforms were ordinary rocks, and the clouds only seafoam, and that she was not asleep at all. Dreaming or not, the spirits beseeched her.  _ Please,  _ they said, or meant, or felt.  _ Please. Please. _

“What do you _ want  _ from me?!” she shrieked one day, startling a flock of seabirds and setting the furry little jungle-men howling. No answer echoed but her own voice.  _ Want, want, want. _

But that night one spirit in particular came to her. She could not detect its form or its nature, only that it was human-shaped, bright eyes glowing in a charcoal body of roiling clouds.

_ Was it you who saved me?  _ she asked it, but it only looked at her, unblinking.

It reached out; she held herself still. It touched a wispy finger to her forehead; light filled her vision, overwhelmed her; and when she could see again the spirit was gone.

“But what do you want me to do?” she begged the empty darkness.

This time an answer. _ Come home,  _ it said.  _ Come home. _

But where was home? The only home she’d ever known had told her to go and never come back. And even if that hadn’t been what Loriel said, it had been what she meant.

She snorted. “I don’t fucking think so,” she told the teeming, empty air. “This sandy rock is home now, and I don’t intend to leave, and you can’t make me.”

No response that she could discern.

_ Come home,  _ they said.  _ We need you. _

“Need me for what? Who  _ are  _ you?”

_ Need you. Come home. _

If the voice had been familiar, if it had been anything like the one voice she wanted to hear _ — _ she might have considered it. Hell _ — _ she would have flown from the island. She would have done everything in her considerable power to return to her. Even after everything. In a heartbeat.

But  _ that  _ voice she would have known in an instant. It wasn’t her. So Yvanne didn’t care.

“Piss off,” she told them, retreating to her hard-won shelter. “I’m going to bed.”

But bed brought no relief. And what more, thinking of Loriel had been a mistake. She began to dream of her _ — _ and more than dream.

The golden line between them, gossamer-thin, now almost worn away, still wrapped about her throat and drew her forward. A thousand miles lay between them, but in the Fade, only a few steps. 

_ No,  _ she thought,  _ no, no, no, I don’t want to see that, please, show me anything but that.  _ (This was a lie, of course.)

Loriel’s hair was longer now, falling into her sunken eyes and draping over her shoulders. She wore high-necked long-sleeve woolen robes, so dark they made her pale skin downright chalky. She stood at a stone table, looking between a black crystal and a long page of handwritten notes. Sometimes she put the crystal down and made more notes, sometimes picked it up again. Sometimes she scratched her nose or took a sip of water. It was utterly mundane, and utterly hypnotic. Yvanne gazed for what must have been a thousand years.

She woke sick and aching and wishing she didn’t exist.

“Did I ask?” she complained to the pre-dawn light. “I didn’t want to  _ fucking  _ see that. Don’t do it again, or you’ll be sorry.”

_ We saved you.  _ Tinges of anger, now, but Yvanne didn’t care.  _ You owe us. Come home. _

She thought about leaving the island. But where would she go? When she imagined the world beyond and all its naked hostility, she found she preferred the howling spirits. She thought of Loriel, shut up in a tower of her own design, and suddenly understood her better.

She dreamt of her again the next night. And the one after that. 

Loriel didn’t seem to be leading a particularly exciting life. She read. She worked. One time Yvanne happened to see her in the bath. It felt like a violation, but one she had no control over. 

The only person Loriel ever seemed to talk to _ — _ Yvanne could never her her voice like this _ — _ was a young human woman with a sunburst pendant and eager, earnest eyes. Who the hell was she? Why was she in Loriel’s office so much? She had no right to know, no right to even wonder, but the wondering consumed her for the rest of her waking hours.

Night after night, she watched Loriel sit by the fire and sip wine, her book held loosely in her lap. It felt like an affront. Here Yvanne was defying time and space to see her, and Loriel had no idea she was there.

“I don’t get why I keep ending up here,” she snapped at her. “As though you were the only part of my life. You weren’t, you know! I had people I cared about, who cared about me. Who respected me. I had work I enjoyed, work that mattered. And you took all of that away. What gave you the right?”

Oblivious, Loriel turned another page.

“You weren’t even the  _ best  _ part of my life. You didn’t make me happy. In fact, you made me miserable. You made me worse.”

And that was true, sure enough. Loriel had made her worse. Loriel had made her unhappy. Loriel had made her suffer. And nothing, for as long as she lived, would ever be as important as the fact that she had loved her.

After a few of these nights she was reduced to helpless tears.

“Is this your plan?” she pleaded. “To drive me mad with these visions until I do as you say?”

But even she couldn’t fool herself. It wasn’t the island spirits sending these visions; it was her own doing, her own spirit unrestrained by her waking self. She’d never been one much for control. For years she’d dulled her senses with drink, let every part of her that was sacred atrophy and rot away, and these past few weeks her Fade connection had returned. She was a spirit mage in full again; but untrained, unbalanced, and unhinged.

_ Come home,  _ the spirits urged.  _ Come home. _

“But I have no home.”

_ You will. _

When next she dreamt of Loriel she noticed that outside her window there was snow.

Snow? But it was summer. That couldn’t have been right. Then she looked closer and realized that Loriel’s hair was at least two full inches longer than before. But that had been just the other night, and this was months and months of growth.

She awoke with a start, and watched the sun rise—in the exact same location where it had set the night before. 

She looked up at the stars. No constellation was familiar.

Sweet Maker—where  _ was  _ she?

How long had she been here? 

How many years had passed beyond these waters?

_ Come home. _

Then and there she resolved that her time on the island was over.

There was one place left in Thedas where she might find someone who might help her; where she might find out why spirits called to her so strongly, why and how they had saved her from drowning. What had made her this way, and why.

She would complete her journey to Rivain, in a ship of her own making—or else go mad and die gibbering.


	20. Chapter 20

Yvanne set to shipbuilding—an art of which she knew nothing—with a ferocity of an animal trapped. 

A ship was just a pile of floating wood and a sail, wasn’t it? It didn’t need to be fancy. It just had to get her off this forsaken rock. She was a mage—the youngest-Harrowed mage in her entire Circle—and she had absolutely nothing better to do, so by Andraste’s fiery tits, she would build a seaworthy vessel, and she was getting off this damn rock.

Her first attempt didn’t even hold together. Her second fell apart as soon as it hit the water. Her third overturned and dumped her into the surf almost immediately. The fourth made it a little further before doing the exact same thing. The fifth was destroyed in a sudden storm and was never launched. The sixth held together in body, but the sail kept ripping away.

By this time it had been weeks, and she was weighing the possibility of drowning herself after all. 

Assuming this place would  _ let  _ her drown. Now that was a frightening thought.

_ You know, you don’t have to do this alone,  _ she thought. Or remembered, or was told. 

At first the thought seemed like nonsense. Of course she had to do it alone. There was no one else here.

But—no, that wasn’t true, was it? She wasn’t alone. She wasn’t alone at all.

“Alright, spirits,” she said aloud. “You want me to come home, you’ll have to help me.” No answer that she could hear, but she didn’t care. They  _ would  _ help her; she’d already decided. It was their own fault that she was in this mess.

At Kinloch, spirit magic had been painfully limited. Even her own discipline of spirit healing, closest to the Fade, had been restricted to interactions with nonverbal wisps. As a safety precaution; lest the spirit mage become corrupted. Yvanne had always liked the wisps, brainless as they were, but they weren’t much for conversation. She needed more than wisps. She needed a shipwright.

So she started summoning spirits.

Everyone she summoned, she interrogated. What was the best shape for a small deepwater vessel? How could she best seal the space between the woven wood? How might she make a sturdy sail, and how ought she rig it? What did they know of navigating deep waters? Of coastal shelves? Of the wind patterns in this part of the sea? 

At first it was slow going. She didn’t know much about summoning  _ particular  _ spirits. Even if she could more or less zero in on spirits of knowledge and curiosity, getting one that knew anything about shipbuilding was harder, and getting them to talk about  _ that  _ instead of whatever random thing they were interested in at the moment was nigh impossible. Yvanne learned a great deal about the varieties of beetle native to the jungles of Seheron, the exhaustive details of Avvar inter-tribal relations, and the true names of every mollusc that lived at the bottom of the Narrow Sea, but not much about shipbuilding.

At least spirits were decent company. Or maybe that’s just how it seemed to her after months of isolation and fever dreams.

Spirits of Curiosity would be happy to tell her anything they knew, if she answered their questions in turn. Only their questions were esoteric things she never knew how to answer, like ‘how many truth and beauty in a singleton?’ and ‘what is the nature of endings?’. Many spirits of knowledge immediately took offense to be treated this way and refused to share anything until she humbled herself. Some haughty spirits who she was relatively sure were Pride demons in the making could be made to help her just by watching her do it wrong, whereupon their urge to correct her took over and the entire task

One watched her clumsily stitch her sail in the making for the better part of the hour before snapping and begging to have the use of her hands.

She hesitated. Wasn’t that like possession?

_ No, no, not your soul, not even your whole body,  _ it snapped.  _ Just your hands!  _

In the Circle this would have been an obvious dupe, a trick to get her to let her guard down. For days Yvanne refused. But her hands would not cooperate. Even if she knew in her mind how to do it, she didn’t know in her body. On the edge of tears of frustration, no longer caring if she became possessed—after all, who could she hurt here?—Yvanne gave in.

It was strange, to feel a force besides her own animating her body, but not altogether unpleasant. The sail was finished by sundown, and she knew that if she had tried to do it herself, it would have taken all week, and still come apart in the end. 

She thanked it as it left. It haughtily deigned to acknowledge her, and returned to the Fade. And she was no worse for wear.

One spirit, however, was notably absent—the fiery-eyed charcoal being who had appeared to her before. She’d grown wary of it, even to hate it, but now she missed its presence.

“Well?” she said to the air. “And what about you? You started all this, didn’t you? It was your doing? Come out, then. Show yourself, and let’s talk.”

But the spirit—if indeed it was a spirit—wasn’t feeling chatty. Even the whispers had died down since she had begun work on the ship, as though they were satisfied that she was finally getting a move on.

In those days she came to understand all that a spirit mage could be. To be a spirit mage was to be more than yourself. It was to be part of a vast network of experience and emotion and being; it was to be part of the world, this one and the other. She was not yet such a mage; but she could imagine becoming one.

All the while, the sun rose and set—but never where she expected it. Time was passing on the island, sure enough—but in fits and starts and haphazard bursts. She tried not to think of what world she would find when she finally sailed away from this place.

Slowly, but much quicker than it otherwise might have been, her ship came together. Sometimes the furry jungle creatures came out to watch her at her work, having determined her not to be a threat. A few brave ones even ventured out to have a closer look. On the day she raised and secured the mast, they broke out in excited whoops and chitters. She’d miss them.

Before braving open water, she took her ship for a jaunt around the coast. A sailor’s memory, collected by a spirit of longing, filled her mind, and she knew just which rope to pull, which to secure, how to catch the wind in the triangular sail so that she always travelled in the direction she wanted. She launched successfully, and ran back aground without incidence. She was seaworthy.

The ship could float, but would it survive the open sea? 

She began to make preparations to finally leave the island. She stocked up on provisions; preserving what could be preserved, hoping the rest would last at least a little while. With hesitation, she forewent water; for that she would summon rain. There wouldn’t be room on her one-woman ship otherwise; she would be relying on fresh-caught fish for some of her food as it was. 

Initially she tried to chart the likely winds in the area; but winds came with seasons, and she had no idea what season it was. She didn’t even know  _ where  _ she was. She had initially assumed a tropical latitude; but maybe even that wasn’t the case. She knew nothing about what she would find when she sailed beyond the island’s coastal shelf.

Finally everything that could be done was done. Her boat was sturdy. Her provisions were stocked. The winds here never changed—they only ever blew inward—so there was no point in waiting for a favorable wind. All that was left…was to go.

_ Come home,  _ they’d said. And what would happen if they took her back to Ferelden? If she saw the pennants of Amaranthine again? Would she face that place again? Or would she turn around and walk right back into the sea?

“Okay, spirits,” she muttered, double-checking the security of her provisions and hoisting the sail. “I don’t know where I need to go, or what I’m supposed to do, so this one is all on you.” 

The wind filled her makeshift sail.

—

The first day at sea, she watched the sun’s path as it rose and set and rose again. She was half-convinced the island would not let her go, that no matter how the wind blew, she would always find the island in her sights.

But that didn’t happen. She watched it disappear behind the waves, and stay disappeared. For so long she’d thought of nothing but getting away.

Now here she was, away. 

Even the spirit voices, her constant companions, had quieted.

Now here she was, alone.

She had a paddle, and a sail she could trim, and she could find her way by the stars which now were nearly the same every night, but she knew it wouldn’t matter. The sea was too vast and too strong. She would go where its current took her. Her skin had long since cracked and dried and callused from salt and sweat and labor, and her hands ached as new exposure opened old cuts. All around her stretched horizon.

The wind blew. The waves lapped. The sun shined.

Now here she was, alive.

On one day, a dolphin swam alongside her for nearly an hour, curiously bumping her craft with its head, so hard she worried it would break, until the creature grew bored and swam away. Another day a school of fish leapt out of the water and landed in her boat by the armful, flopping and squirming in desperation. Another day she woke to cloudy skies and an approaching storm, and all day long the rain and wind buffeted her, the waves rose to terrifying heights, and if not for her magic, she surely would have been lost. But as the sun rose the next day, her boat was intact, most of her provisions still aboard, and she was still alive.

There was still no land in sight.

Slowly her provisions dwindled. To conserve energy, she slept. The vivid realness of her Fade dreams had not lessened with distance from the island—they appeared to simply be part of her now. She walked upon the verdant sea as her unconscious body floated. She dreamt of mangrove trees and bald cypresses heavy with grayish tangles of moss, shooting up from deep dark standing water. She dreamt of jeweled spiders in impossible webs, of morning fog and heavy air, of somewhere new-old and strange-familiar. She dreamt of a grand city rising above it all, with a tower of living wood pulsing with life at its center. The whole time she could not shake the sense of pursuing somebody who always remained just barely out of reach. Even when she did not sleep, she was not fully awake. She was a mote upon the endless iron-blue, and she was no one and nothing, and she was the only soul in the whole world, and she was all she needed.

She awoke when her ship ran aground. 

Truly awake for the first time in weeks, she shot up and nearly sobbed with relief. There was land! There were the mangrove trees, there were the rocky shores!

Then she realized that her boat was rapidly filling with water.

She shot up. There was no saving the craft; the shore rocks had fatally gashed open the faithful vessel’s belly. In her haste to check the damage, she stood too quickly, overbalanced the craft, and capsized.

It wasn’t the first time on her journey that the vessel had capsized and required rescue. But now there was no saving it. The remnants of her provisions were floating away from her. 

She wobbled onto the rocky shore.

Yvanne didn’t know how long she’d been on the island—or how many years had passed in the interim. But wherever she was now, it was where she was supposed to be. She could feel the same pull she had felt before, stronger now, urging her to come further inland.

Wherever this was, it wasn’t Ferelden. She released a sigh of relief she’d forgotten she’d taken.

Well, that could wait. First she would dry off, and find some food.  _ Then  _ she would go and meet her destiny, or whatever it was she was supposed to do here.

Having grown accustomed to aloneness, she quite forgot that openly using magic might earn her sanction. So she quite brazenly summoned a pile of logs to come walk over to her and arrange themselves to her liking, set them magically afire, and earthshaped for herself a comfortable place to recline. She was considering whether her food options would be better inside the forest or in the water when she realized that she was being watched.

A whole group of travellers were staring openly at her. How much had they seen?—no, it didn’t matter. They’d seen enough. Wild visions of discovery by Templars shot through her mind. They would report her. Of course they would. And then she would have Templars to evade—no, better prevent it in the first place. Better handle this before it got away from here, even if she did something she didn’t want to have to do—

And while these awful thoughts spun in her head, the travellers approached with smiling faces and greeted her in a language she didn’t understand.

“I—what?” she coughed. The man who’d spoken, dark-skinned and blue-eyed with a turban wrapped around his head frowned slightly and repeated what he’d said. When her slackjawed expression didn’t change, he said something else, and then—

“How about this?”

“Oh! I—understood.” It had been so long since she’d talked to anyone but Fade spirits. Now he probably thought she barely even spoke Common.

“Good!” he said, beaming. “Greetings to you, Seeress. Have you had a hard journey?”

“I—er—uh,” Yvanne said intelligently, looking back at the sunken remnants of her boat, then back to the travellers. “Yes?”

“Then of course we must feed you! No, we insist. We would not leave a seer in need.” The man gave a knowing look to his companion.

In astonishingly quick succession—Maker, where were they getting it all?—the travellers brought out food, blankets, cushions to sit on, spices for the fire. After weeks at sea and untold months on a deserted island she didn’t have the decorum to protest; she devoured everything they gave her and asked for more. 

Near the end of the meal one of their party brought out a pan flute and started to play; a woman besides him started to sing and clap along. Someone handed her a flask of something, something sweet that burned in the best way, even as she realized that she didn’t particularly want to be drunk anymore. 

The hour passed in easy, if nonverbal, camaraderie. It seemed that only one of the travellers had a language in common with her, though some of his (she assumed) children made some attempts. It was he that finally said: “Seeress, we have shared with you all that we had, foregoing nothing. Now you will speak to the spirits for us?”

Yvanne stared at him. “Sorry—what?”

The man gazed at her with a small, puzzled smile. “The spirits. You will intercede with them on our behalf, yes?”

“I...don’t know how to do that. I’m sorry.”

The man’s small smile faded to confused frown. One of the children tugged on his tunic, and he said something to her in their native tongue. Now the whole company burst into murmurs. “Of course you can,” the man said to her. “Are you not a seer?”

Yvanne only stared blankly.

Now the man was getting annoyed. “We  _ saw  _ you doing magic,” he said. “Of course you are a seer.”

_ Oh,  _ she thought. “I’m sorry, I—the problem is I’m not from here, I’m not really a seer. I mean, I am a mage, I can do magic, and I talk to spirits sometimes, but I don’t—know what you’re talking about? I’m really sorry.”

After a beat, the man with the headwrap translated this for the benefit of the rest of the group. 

“Not that I’m not grateful!” she assured hurriedly. “Maker knows I am! But I didn’t realize I…”

“No, not. It was our mistake. Do not worry,” said the man in the headwrap, clearly disappointed.

A few more uncomfortable minutes passed. The travellers mostly spoke to each other in their own language and started to pack up their things.

“Well, seer or mage or whoever you are,” said the man in the headwrap, “We must be heading on. Where are you going now?”

“I don’t know. A long time ago I meant to go to Dairsmuid. But I was waylaid. Some force—I think a spirit—is drawing me somewhere, but I don’t know where. I know that doesn’t make much sense. My life has taken some strange turns recently.”

The man adopted gave her a patient, puzzled look. “Good luck to you, then. But if you decide to go to Dairsmuid after all, then you’ve met some fortune. Dairsmuid is less than a league inland, over that way. If you follow the trail you’ll be there within the hour.”

The travellers moved on, and Yvanne was left alone.

The mangroves called:  _ come home.  _ The voice was stronger now than ever.

But this wasn’t home. She had never been here before, for all she saw it in her dreams. Home was flagstones and blue pennants and silverite armor. Home was high iron walls and a mountain of letters to answer. Home was the only person who had ever really known her. Home was someone that she’d never known at all. Home was a tower of shame and disgust, bound up with love and devotion so tight it would never be parted. Home was lost to her. 

As though in a dream, Yvanne pushed through the foliage.

As promised the trail through the mangroves gave way to a settlement. Her bare and callused feet stood not on mud but on wood, smooth planks carefully arranged into a walkway raised above the standing water. Houses stood on raised posts, more and more of them as she walked on. A whole city, built on the water. Long and narrow boats made up more than half the traffic of this city. She knew exactly where to go.

_ Come home. _

Finally a tower rose up before her eyes; not of stone, but wood, and not of dead wood, but living wood. The biggest tree she had ever seen in her life grew there. Young men and women stood outside it, but when they saw her approach, they let her pass.

And in she went.  _ Come home. _

Inside was dark, lit only by greenish, flickering wisplight. An old, old woman sat upon a throne of living wood. Her eyes were closed. She breathed, but only just. Yvanne watched her for a time, and only then did she realize that the old woman did not merely sit upon the throne of living wood; she was fused to it.

“Was it you who called me here?” Yvanne demanded.

Not speaking, nor opening her eyes, the old woman inclined her head.

Here within the tree, the spirit voices were utterly silent. Yvanne was alone in her head for the first time in months.

Questions leapt to her lips. Why? How? Who are you? What do you want from me? Why did you bring me here? But her tongue remained still, and the old woman said nothing.

“Well,” Yvanne said instead, and sank to her knees. “Here I am.”

The old woman’s ancient puckered mouth formed into a smile.

“Here you are,” she said, and opened her eyes. They were green and pale and bright as the moon, shining out from her ancient chestnut face like jewels. “Come here.”

Yvanne came forward, eyes downcast. She could not stand to look at this person. It was all too much.

A papery hand touched her cheek, raising her chin. Yvanne found herself staring into the woman’s remarkable eyes. For a long moment they only looked.

“So,” the old woman said, “here you are.” Then she smiled, utterly radiant. “My heart rejoices to see you in the flesh, my great grand-daughter. We have all been waiting.”


	21. Chapter 21

All around Yvanne the enormous cypress thrummed with life. If there was a world beyond the belly of the hollow tree, she didn’t quite believe it. 

“I don’t understand,” she said.

“Of course you don’t understand,” her great grandmother said kindly. Distant bells seemed to ring with every one of her words. All of a sudden Yvanne wasn’t sure if the old woman’s lips were actually moving when she spoke to her. “Who could possibly expect you to?”

“Why did you bring me here? That spirit I saw—was that you?”

“In a way,” the old woman allowed. “But I did not bring you here. You brought yourself.”

“But you called me. You told me to come home.”

“Is that what you heard?” She smiled. “Oh, my daughter.”

That stung. “Stop it,” Yvanne growled. “You don’t even know me.”

“Not as well as I’d like. But we have met, in the world beneath the world.”

“You’ve been spying on me,” Yvanne realized. “Through the Fade. Just what gave you the right?”

The old woman’s bright eyes flashed. “Precisely the same thing that gives  _ you  _ to look in on those  _ you  _ wish to see.”

“That’s—that’s not the same,” Yvanne faltered. “I didn’t want to look. I tried not to look. I couldn’t control it.”

“But you’d like to. And so you are here.”

“No, I’m here because you  _ called  _ me. I’m here because I had just settled into a perfectly contented life when all of a sudden I became tormented by these voices— _ your  _ voice.”

Yvanne could load quite a lot of furious accusation into a short phrase spoken softly, but the old woman remained unmoved. “Believe me, my daughter, I do not have the power to bring about what you experienced. If you heard my voice, it was as a trickle in a torrent. You have begun to awaken as a spirit mage.” 

“And just what in the void does  _ that  _ mean?”

In tones of infinite patience: “For years you have hobbled yourself; now you are beginning to walk freely for the first time. Of course you were overwhelmed. Anyone would be. Nobody here in Dairsmuid awakens in their third decade of life, without the benefit of any guidance whatsoever.” In tones of bottomless sorrow: “You have been done a great disservice.”

Yvanne stood for a while, feeling all the hot air leak out of her.

“So can you help me?” she said, defeated. “Or not?”

“Of course I can. And I will. If you choose it. But how far you walk along the path is always up to you.”

Something sat uncomfortably in Yvanne’s stomach. “Alright, fine. Can you at least answer me this?” she said wearily. “Where is my mother?”

The old woman cast her eyes down. “That I do not know. She never came here.”

An unspoken hope died in her chest. “My father, then? My sisters?”

“Three of your sisters live,” the old woman said. “In one way or another. But of all who I called, only you returned.”

All she did not say fell upon Yvanne like a mountain. She dropped her head. “I see.”

“Oh, my daughter. I am sorry.” She sounded like she meant it. 

More questions sprung to her lips. When did my father die? And how? Which of her four sisters lived? And how? But as soon as they occurred to her, she thought better of them. She didn’t want to know. Of course she didn’t. If she’d wanted to know, she would have seen it in the Fade. It was a cruel thing to know about herself. 

“Why me, then?”

“You are the one who answered.”

“No. Why call at all? My father never spoke of his home. We have nothing to do with each other, blood relatives or not. What do you want with me?”

“Is it so wrong for an old woman to wish to see her lost daughter?” The old woman’s eyes closed. She said no more for many long moments. “I apologize. I am tired now. I must walk in the Fade for a time.”

“What? But I’ve only just arrived!”

“We will speak again. For now you will go with Itai; he will be your companion today.”

“Now hold on, I—” Yvanne began to protest, but the old woman was already asleep, having slipped into dreams in the space of a few breaths. She was alone. But she did not feel alone. If anything she felt like an intruder. The tree keeping her great-grandmother alive thrummed steadily, like a heartbeat.

“Yvanne?”

She turned to face a young man with wide cheekbones and a halo of black curls. “How did you know my name? Or that I was here?”

He gave her a polite, puzzled smile. “Buya called me, of course. I’ve finished my training for today, so I can show you around.” He was younger than her. Was he even twenty? “I’m Itai—I think we might be cousins.” He crossed his right arm over his chest and tilted his chin down in greeting.

She stiffened. “Well, maybe we’re cousins, but you don’t know me, and I’m only staying here for as long as it takes me to get this—this  _ problem _ under control, so don’t get too comfortable. There’s no need for all this...this…”

Itai shrugged. “Well, you’re going to have to wait at least a few hours anyway before she wakes up, so you might as well see the city, right?” 

—

On her way to the great cypress, Yvanne had paid no attention to her surroundings at all. A compulsion to reach the tree where her ancestor dwelled had consumed her, and only now had it loosened its hold on her. Now she was finally seeing the city with clear eyes.

Dairsmuid was a city built upon the water. Wooden planks, shiny and smooth from the thousands of feet that walked upon them, were its streets, but so was the water; everywhere were gondoliers carrying goods by canoe, chatting with each other as they passed. Some of the buildings were built in the trees themselves, and what trees they were; they flared at their twisted, knotty bases. Some grew fused together, making masses large enough to support homes. Circling steps were bolted to many of them, and cables ran between the boughs, sending packages and messages zipping overhead.

Itai introduced Yvanne to more distant cousins and uncles and aunts than she could possibly keep track of, men and women of all ages. Each one greeted her with a kiss on the cheek and a quick embrace, too swiftly and with too much assurance for her to protest.

And not a single one of them batted an eye at all the magic.

Magic didn’t seem to exactly be common in Dairsmuid, but every once in a while she would spot a shopkeeper levitating his wares, or a gondolier lighting a lantern with a snap of his fingers. Everywhere she saw spirits, mostly formless wisps, but larger, more distinct spirits, too. Children chased them like chickens, earning scoldings from their parents when they were caught. She watched, rapt, one group of mage children play a game of spark-shooting with each other. As she watched something cracked open deep inside her, and suddenly she wanted to cry.

“Alright, there?” said Itai. She snapped out of it, drawing her eyes away from a scene where one child chased a wisp right over the edge and into the water, where he was fished out by an irritated gondolier. She just barely managed to nod.

Itai kept rambling as he took her around, away from the center of the city—”Dairsmuid’s mostly on the water now, but old timers will tell you how the sea used to be much further out“—past rows of fishermen hauling in oysters and crayfish—”They’re best with lemon sauce,”—inland towards residential areas that were raised over mud and peat rather than standing water. They went past shrines to Andraste laid with offerings of fire-lilies—”What? Of course we worship Andraste! What a strange question,”—past spirit-lanterns nestled in the branches of the cypresses—”They’re always lit, so nobody falls off the platform. And if someone does, the spirits signal the night watchman to come over and fish them out...it’s usually just the drunks, though.”

Yvanne found herself liking Itai quite a lot. Until—

“And my Templar training isn’t so bad, usually, but master has us getting up so  _ early,  _ and usually at night I find myself thinking of so many things and unable to sleep—”

She stopped in her tracks. It took him a few seconds to notice, and he turned, puzzled.

“Your  _ what  _ training?”

“Templar training,” he repeated. “Are you alright? You look like you ate something curdled.”

“I didn’t realize Dairsmuid had  _ Templars. _ ” She did not try to keep the hiss out of her voice. _ Including my own family. _

He stared at her, uncomprehending. “Sorry, I don’t get it. What’s the problem?”

How in Thedas was she to respond to that? “So was that why they picked you to give me the tour? Were you supposed to keep an eye on me and cut me down in case I turned out to be dangerous after all? I  _ knew  _ I was right to be suspicious—”

“Hold on!” Itai was laughing. Actually laughing! “I think you’re confused. In Dairsmuid, Templar is a ceremonial role. We don’t take lyrium or anything like the westerners. I’m not even being taught to  _ fight  _ with this thing—” He tapped the ornate weapon belted to his hip. “It’s all just rituals and basic forms.” 

“Then—” She stumbled. “Then what’s the point?”

He shrugged. “Tradition? Got to be a Circle at Dairsmuid, with Templars. So we have them. We’re supposed to keep the Seers safe, but the Seers don’t really need protection, so it’s pretty boring. Once I finish training, I’m probably going to be a fisherman like my da. Look, the sword’s ceremonial—it’s not even sharp.”

She must have still been staring. He smiled, embarrassed. “Sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I don’t really know much about western Circles.”

Maker, but this place was _ weird. _

“I can’t believe the Chantry lets this place exist,” Yvanne said just as the silence was growing awkward..

“Well, Rivain’s pretty far from Orlais.” He shrugged. “We do things our own way. Really, the Qunari up north are a much bigger problem, but Dairsmuid’s not anywhere near Kont-Arr. Anyway, the Seers wouldn’t let anything happen.”

“Just what is a Seer? Exactly?”

Itai looked at her like she’d just asked the color of the sky. “Huh? But you’re a Seer. Aren’t you?”

She shook her head.

“You know—a woman who communes with the spirits. You call them mages out west, right?”

“But plenty of men are mages,” said Yvanne. “What do you do with the boys who are born with magic?”

Itai snorted, laughing.“Nobody’s  _ born _ with magic. Spirits pick who they want to talk to. And sure, boys can talk to spirits, but they can’t be Seers.”

“Why not?”

“They just can’t.” He scratched his head. “Look, I don’t really know. Why don’t you ask Maita? She’s not a Seer yet, but she will be. Come on, you’ll like her. I have to get home and help da clean today’s catch, anyway, so I’ll leave you with her, if that’s alright.”

Three girls sat laughing and weaving reed baskets as Itai and Yvanne approached. One of them stood in anticipation, her eyes widening in delight. All three girls wore bright brass jewelry, but one—the Seer?—wore the most; bangles on her wrists and ankles, and a headdress of overlapping discs that glittered and clinked with her tiniest movement. 

“Is this her?” she demanded of Itai, and didn’t wait for an answer. “Oh, it is! Oh, welcome! We are also so glad you have come.” She jangled as she wrapped Yvanne in a tight, loud embrace. “Ambuya told us you had come.”

“But how—”

“Oh, but your hair!” Maita gasped. Never had Yvanne heard anyone sound so heartbroken over hair. She glanced over her shoulder to plead wordlessly with Itai, but he was already grinning, waving goodbye, and backing away, the traitor. “You poor thing, you must have been through so much.” 

Yvanne suddenly became aware of her body, sharply and unpleasantly. She hadn’t looked at herself in so long that she had forgotten that others could still see her. Maker, she didn’t even want to think about how she probably smelled She self-consciously tucked a piece of it behind her ear. Unending months of neglect and salt had caused it to dread up into unsalvageable masses.

“You  _ must  _ let me fix it for you. Oh, I love to do braids, but--may I?” She reached out to touch Yvanne’s hair. She struggled not to flinch. “No, I don’t think there’s enough left to do braids. How about knots? Or twists? I do the best twists; ask anyone.” She turned to her two friends, clinking, for confirmation. Both nodded earnestly.

Nobody had done Yvanne’s hair since she was nine years old. Loriel had been useless at it and nobody else had come close to earning the right. “I—Okay.”

“Yes! Wonderful! Please, do come in. You must have some of my beads. I’m getting married soon, so I won’t get to wear them, and I don’t even have any sisters to give them to. Only brothers--it makes me so sad!”. Then an expression came over her face. “Wait! You aren’t married, are you? I’m so sorry! I shouldn’t have assumed…”

Yvanne felt the absence of the ring upon her finger, and answered, truthfully, “No, I’m not married.”

Maita’s animated expression returned. “Oh, good! Then you can have the beads. Come, come!”

She tugged her inside, enticing her friends to come join her in solving Yvanne’s hair problem. She was altogether reminded of Leliana. Yvanne slipped out of her grasp. “Look, I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but—we’ve only just met.”

Maita gave her a confused smile. “But of course we’ve met. In the world beneath the world.”

Again that phrase.

“Maita, you’re shaming her,” one of the others said, rolling her eyes. “She has no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Oh,” Maita said, suddenly embarrassed. “Oh, no, you really don’t, do you?”

If Yvanne had not spent the past years being humbled over and over again, she might have taken offense. As it was, she only shrugged.

Maita covered her face in shame. “I’m so sorry—I assumed, since you were training with Ambuya—we were all so jealous when we heard…”

“Sorry,” she muttered. “I’m afraid I only look Rivaini. I’m not a part of any of this. I’m certainly not a Seer.”

“But you  _ are  _ a Seer,” Maita said encouragingly. “Or you will be.”

She crossed her arms, doubtful. “She said I was only beginning to learn. That I was already late.”

“It doesn’t matter. You’ll learn. You’re her blood, after all.”

“Isn’t half of Dairsmuid her blood? I’ve lost track of how many cousins I’ve met today.”

Maita laughed. She had a musical laugh. “Perhaps not so much as half! Our Buya had many sons, but even those who are not her blood are still her family; she is buya to all of us.”

Yvanne, who had been assuming that ‘Buya’ was the old woman’s name, made a small adjustment.

Dairsmuid had a public bathhouse, and she was in luck—today was the women’s day to use it. The next several hours went to matters of hair and beads and other things so trivial that Yvanne had nearly forgotten they existed. Was there really still a world of moisturizing hair cream and scents and jewelry? She had liked such things, once, because in the Circle they had been—if not forbidden, then strictly discouraged, and difficult to get a hold of. The habit had stayed with her as the Vigil’s keeper, and she had yet to be cured of it. It was so ridiculous. It was so nice.

Somewhere in this process she told the story of her travels. She hadn’t meant to—she’d thought it far too painful—but somehow it all came out. She started with hiding in Highever—she left out that she had ever been a Grey Warden—and by the time she got to the part with the pirates her hair was done. It had been long all her life, and was twisted close to her head and bound with bells and beads. She looked both like and unlike Isabela, like and unlike her old self. She had never felt so light; she couldn’t stop tilting her head back and forth and feeling the absence of the weight. It was strange, but not—bad. No, not bad at all.

By then it was time for the evening meal was upon them, and Maita’s mother—a stout woman who had clearly never taken no for an answer in her life—was insisting. Yvanne ate with Maita and her mother and her younger brothers who stared at her with curious eyes the size of dinner plates. Maita’s mother, it turned out, was not from Dairsmuid, but from a village on the eastern coast. 

“—I came here to be with my girl, of course. She wanted to learn here in the capital, and I was not about to let her go alone,” she said proudly.

Yvanne slept there on a palette by the smouldering hearth, sick with imagining what it would be like to have a mother like that.

As the days passed and her great-grandmother did not summon her, she was folded into Maita’s family almost without noticing. Maita had three younger brothers who Yvanne somehow fell into the watching of—boys of six, ten, and twelve, who begged her to show them how to make lightning. She helped with the chores, kept the boys busy. She even learned a few words of the local Rivaini dialect. On the last day of the week, she helped decorate the household shrine to Andraste with marsh-lillies and necklaces of carved wooden beads. The prayers spoken over the shrine were not entirely unlike the Chant, but not entirely like it, either.

Finally came market day, so Yvanne saw the Dairsmuid market. Maita tugged her along as she did her family’s shopping, informing her of what fruits were in season and asking frequent questions about what things were like in Ferelden. 

“Oh, I used to  _ love  _ the star-reader,” Maita sighed, pointing out a woman’s nondescript stall. “Of course, it is not Seeing, but that’s what made it special. My friends and I used to giggle for hours over the fates the stars had in store for us. The men we would marry, how many children we would have…” She trailed off, then finished cheerfully, “But I’ll be getting married soon.”

Yvanne could not help but notice that no husband-to-be was in evidence.

Maita clinked loudly as she laughed. “I haven’t met him yet, of course! He lives in a village far away from here, one that needs a Seer. Once I have passed the ritual, I’ll be ready to serve. I’m told he’s very kind. Is it bad that I hope he’s handsome, too?” She giggled behind her hand. “But you aren’t married! Do you want to consult the star-reader? Don’t you ever wonder what your husband will be like?

“Hm,” said Yvanne. “No, thank you.”

Soon after Maita encountered a friend of hers, and fell inextricably into an animated conversation that Yvanne couldn’t follow at all. Slighted, and resentful that she felt so, she wandered away. She could hear in the middle distance bell-like music. The source of it turned out to be a Vashoth woman sitting cross-legged, producing the tune from an instrument Yvanne had no name for, a wooden box lined with metal rods that produced unearthly music under the Vashoth’s careful fingers. Too soon, the song ended, and she lifted her hornless head to smile in thanks at the crowd. 

Only then did Yvanne notice the scars around her lips.

“Did you mean to buy something?” the Vashoth asked suddenly. Yvanne forced herself not to stare.

“I have no money,” she stammered, then added, “Sorry.”

The saarebaas sized her up, and smiled. As she did, her scars instantly became the most noticeable thing about her. “Oh, I see. You’re new; one of Buya’s girls, aren’t you? I am called Amarna.”

“So I’m told,” Yvanne said stiffly

“You’re a bit old to start training.”

“I’ve _ had _ training.”

The saarebas laughed shrugging. “Mm. Well, it was probably better than the training  _ I  _ got.”

Yvanne’s eyes flicked to the woman’s scars again. 

Amarna snorted good-naturedly. “Admiring these?” she said, touching her lips.

“I wasn’t—”

The former saarebas laughed. “Go ahead and look, I’m not ashamed.”

Yvanne wanted to apologize, but now she worried that it would only make it worse. Luckily the awkwardness was broken by a little Vashoth girl in pigtails, no more than eight years old, and already as high as Yvanne’s shoulder.

“Look what my friend showed me how to do!” the little girl said breathlessly to—presumably—her mother, ignoring Yvanne entirely. She extended her pudgy, little-girl hands palms up. Fireballs bloomed there, first, red, then yellow, then green and blue. Yvanne startled backwards and nearly knocked over a rack of fishing spears. “Are you proud of me?”

“Very good!” her mother beamed as Yvanne desperately tried to stabilize the rack of spears. “Indeed I am proud of you. But do you remember the rules?”

The girl let the fireballs dissipate. “No fire without my tutors watching,” she said ruefully, rolling her eyes. 

“That’s right. Now go play.”

Only then did the little girl notice Yvanne and mutter a shy ‘hello’ before running off again.

“Sorry for her,” said the saarebas. “She’s always trying things she’s not quite ready for yet.”

“That...must be difficult.”

“I can’t even tell you how many times she’s hurt herself!” She shook her head. “But if she makes no mistakes, she’ll never learn.” 

Yvanne had been that age when she’d first discover her magic. She never would have dreamed of showing her father. She’d hidden it. Had prayed for the Maker to take it away. “I’m surprised you don’t worry.”

“Of course I worry! What mother doesn’t? But she has good teachers here.  _ I’ll  _ never be much of a mage, but the Seers take care of her. And if she’ll receive some scars for her own foolishness, she will  _ never _ have scars like mine.” She said it in well-rehearsed tones, like this was a speech she had been obliged to recite too many times.

Yvanne remembered Cheddar, and what had happened to her sarebaaset. But no, she daren’t ask. Instead she said, “What kind of instrument is that?”

And like so Maita found her some minutes later, profusely apologizing for leaving her alone, exchanging pleasantries with Amarna, and finally dragged her away.

“I’m sorry I didn’t warn you,” she said in hushed tones. “I forget that most people outside Rivain aren’t used to the freed saarebas. Quite a lot of them live here.”

That night Yvanne could not get to sleep beneath the unfamiliar ceiling. She thought of Amarna’s little daughter whose magic would only ever earn her a gentle admonition, and envy rose in her gorge like poison. What she would have given to have grown up here in Dairsmuid. What might she have become if her father had brought her here instead of to Ferelden? Why hadn’t he? Why hadn’t he loved her enough to bring her here? All those years in Kinloch, the wretched thing that place made her—

She thought of Amarna’s scars, and thought—yes, it could have been worse. But it could have been better, too.

Yes, she was here now, but what good did that do her? It didn’t make up for it. Nothing ever would. Dairsmuid was not her home. If she had ever had one, it had been Vigil’s Keep.

That home was lost to her. Perhaps did not exist at all. Just like her mother and her father and her sisters. Everything was lost, lost—all that remained was here. A wave of nauseous longing rolled over her like the evening tide, and she went to sleep no less conflicted and confused.

—

She dreamt again of Loriel, buried deep within her tower of stone. Her hair was longer now than it had ever been, neatly parted in the center. Somehow in their time apart it had stopped frizzing, and fell to her back in elegant feathers. Were there new lines on her face? How old was she now?

She was writing busily in a blank parchment manuscript, occasionally consulting a tome at her elbow. She scribbled for hours, only occasionally pausing to sip water or stand up to stretch. All these little gestures, so familiar, so utterly strange.

Who was she? Who  _ was  _ she?

“I never even knew you, did I?” Yvanne said to her, knowing she wouldn’t be heard. “Not that you were any better. You never knew me either, did you? I don’t think I ever felt more alone than when I was with you.”

And Loriel kept scratching away, oblivious. It was starting to make her angry.

“You know,” she said, “If it hadn’t been for all that  _ fucking  _ blood magic, maybe you could have heard me say all these things. Maybe you could have heard me at all. I was too much a coward to say what I meant to your face, and now you’ll never know how I really felt. You selfish fucking  _ bitch. _ ”

And then—

— _ Loriel looked up. _

Her forehead wrinkled in that burningly familiar way. Her mouth began to form the shape of the word,  _ who—? _

The dream collapsed.

—

Yvaanne woke in the middle of the night, knowing that she was summoned to Dairsmuid’s great tree. She received no message; only a conviction that she was wanted, and an intuitive understanding of where to go. She walked there, barefoot, the ancient half-drowned forest singing all around her.

Buya was exactly where she had been, awake and bright eyed. “I am sorry to have woken you. Did I interrupt your dreaming?”

She shook her head. “I did not want that dream.”

“I see.” The old woman’s lips still did not move when she spoke. “Have you decided, then, if you will stay and learn from me?” 

“I…”

A heaviness lay on her heart. After a week in Dairsmuid, she had never missed the Vigil more. She missed her high grey walls, her fluttering banners, the smell of smelting iron in the air. She missed the training, the drinking games, the knowledge that everyone around her knew her name, that people would care if she was gone.

But here in Dairsmuid, everyone somehow knew her name. They would care if she was gone. So they didn’t know her, so what? Nobody had ever known her. 

Dairsmuid was here. Dairsmuid was now. And was love not born of base familiarity? Was love anything besides mere exposure, mere proximity? 

“Great-grandmother, I want to stay,” she said. “But…”

Ambuya waited, patient.

“But there’s someone I still love. Far from here.”

“Ah,” the old woman said. “I see. I will not pretend I am not disappointed, but it was good to lay my mortal eyes on you, my daughter. I wish you all...”

Yvanne shook her head, and knelt. Then she looked up, her eyes streaming. “And I never want to see or think about her, ever again. Please, grandmother—I am yours. Please, teach me.”

Ambuya smiled, reached out, and placed a hand on Yvanne’s bowed head. She was resolved; she would become a part of this. She would be one of many, and she would  _ make  _ this life a good one if it killed her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In canon, Isabela's given name is Naishe, which is a Shona name. As such I based parts of Rivaini language and culture as depicted in this story in part on the Shona people of present-day Zimbabwe, and in part on the syncretic cultures and religions of the colonized West Indies. Though I took inspiration from these cultures to fill in some blank spaces left by Bioware, I'm writing fantasy; nothing here should be taken as a faithful representation of a real-world culture (otherwise I would have done more research than a few hours of googling). As an estranged child of immigrants myself, many of Yvanne's feelings in this chapter are my own, though I have no particular connection to the cultures I drew inspiration from. The musical instrument referenced in this chapter is an [mbira](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mbira). In my head, any time bells are heard in this section of the story, it's the sound of an mbira.


End file.
